Sep 27, 2006, 15:12 GMT
Sydney - Steve Irwin's widow said in a television interview Wednesday that she spent the days following her husband's death curled up in the foetal position willing the Crocodile Hunter to come home one more time.
Steve Irwin with wife Terri and daughter Bindi-Sue at the opening of their new film The Crocodile Hunter at George Street, Sydney. Irwin, aged 44, has died, Monday, 04 Septemeber 2006, in a marine accident while filming an underwater documentary off Port Douglas, his body has been flown to Cairns. EPA/JAMIE FAWCETT AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND OUT
'There never has been before, and never will be again, another Steve Irwin,' Terri Irwin, her eyes still red from weeping, told an Australian television audience in her first public comments since the freak accident earlier this month that killed the 44-year-old wildlife documentary maker.
'I'm still at the stage where I think he's going to come home - and it really didn't happen,' she told Nine Network interviewer Ray Martin.
Terri Irwin and her two children, 8-year-old Bindi and 2-year-old Bob, were on a hiking holiday thousands of kilometres away when the madcap conservationist was pierced in the heart by a stingray on the Great Barrier Reef.
'Rays are beautiful, gentle, wonderful animals,' Terri Irwin, wearing khaki as usual, said in an interview conducted at Australia Zoo near Brisbane, where her husband is believed to be buried.
'It would absolutely devastate Steve if anyone thought badly of an animal that had inadvertently harmed him in this way,' she said.
Bindi earned worldwide adoration by penning her own tribute to her dad and speaking with inordinate aplomb at his memorial service last week, but Terri Irwin was still too shrouded in grief to speak.
'Of the thousands of interviews I've done in my career, this is the one that has moved me most,' Martin said of his conversation with Terri Irwin. 'She was very frail and she said she had spent a lot of time - away from the children so they wouldn't see - on the floor curled up in a foetal position.'
American-born Terri Irwin, 42, spoke of the strength of her 14- year marriage to the larger-than-life zookeeper and television personality. She described him as her 'Prince Charming' and said coping with his loss was 'so hard.'
'I feel lucky, I feel blessed,' Terri Irwin said. 'I've had more than most people. Part of me wishes we had just another 10 years for the kids, but part of me is grateful that we didn't have 10 less years.'
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