So it is 12 months to the day since we got the terrible news that Sam had died.
Some days it still doesn’t feel like it is real. I know it is – but complete and permanent absence is so hard to grasp. Maybe we aren’t supposed to grasp it – death was never intended to be part of this world.
I see pictures of him and I want to see him again, talk to him, hug him, go surfing with him. And while I do hold to the Christian hope of being reunited in the age to come I feel so deeply sad that I have to course the rest of this life without him around.
If Paul is right ‘to live is Christ and to die is gain‘, (and I believe he is), then Sam has won the lottery. He is better off than we are here – which isn’t hard because grief really sux. Today we gather to remember him – to allow the reality of his absence to penetrate our hearts once again in a more significant way.
It’s good to come together, but the reality is that each of us have to grapple with our own unique experience of loss. Just to think of our inner circle of Cos, Ellie, Danelle and I, we have a young woman planning a life with a young man – future dreams decimated… Cosi is strong and courageous but her heart is also broken. No one can feel what she feels.
Danelle has lost her boy – the kid who she really ‘got’. And no one can know the turmoil she suffers. I watch – and sometimes it gives me chills. She has chosen to walk this path and face it head on, which means some days it smashes her hard, but there hasn’t been a day she has stayed in bed and tried to avoid it all. It’s like being in a horror movie for her.
Ellie’s one sibling has gone – the person she was closer to than anyone else.She loved him, protected him and they were a beautiful combination. I can see the damage it has done, a heart in tatters, but I can’t feel it like she can.
And my own experience is well described in this poem my friend Jen shared today. It’s like a background track that i- always playing – you never escape it. Some days it is all you hear, other days it is only there in the quiet moments. But no one can experience my grief either. It’s ever present, gnawing…
(So the images are a selection of what Sam was like – the family clown and always up for a laugh.)
I missed you quietly today. So quietly that no one noticed.
I missed you as I climbed out of bed and as I brushed my teeth; when I waited at the lights on the drive into work and as I heard the rain outside my window.
I missed you as I ordered lunch and as I kicked off my shoes when I got home; as I switched off the lights and climbed into bed for the night.
I missed you without tears or noise or fanfare.
But oh how I felt it.
I felt it in the morning, at lunchtime, in the evening and at night. I felt it as I woke, as I waited, as I worked. I felt it at home, on the road, in the light, in the dark, in the rain.
I felt it in every one of those moments, each one sitting heavier and heavier as the weight of me missing you kept growing and growing.
Way back when Sam was just 4 years old he had learnt hangman and wanted to play. While on the drive to Granny’s place no one wanted to play with him so i offered to guess his word.
S: Ok – go dad! he says excited
H: D?
S: Wow – well done!
H: O
S: What? How did you know that!!!?”
H: G
S: Wow!! Wanna try again?
H: Ok… C?
S: What the?! (He is amazed at how smart his dad is…)
H: A
S: What?! Now he’s wondering what the deal is…
H: T
S: (To Danelle) How does he know these things????!!!!
H: Wanna go again?…
S: Ok I think so. Are you allowed to have names?
H: Sure – you can do that.
S: Ok go!
H:S
S: You’re crazy mate
H: A
S: Aw…
H: M?
S: silence
S: What?! How does he do it mum?!!
Sam did go on to become an excellent speller so I attribute it to the early years of Hangman in the car
Back in the mid 2000’s I was heavily involved with leading Forge in both WA and Oz, which meant that we regularly had some very interesting and gifted people come and stay in our home. One of our favourite regulars was a bloke Darryl Gardiner, a kiwi who was the director of YFC in NZ and previously had been the boss of a home for boys – so he wasn’t a soft touch.
We always enjoyed having Darryl come as he’d remember the kid’s names, remember details about family life, and you could tell he cared about who you were. But on one trip he got a little closer to our family than he had bargained for.
Sam was 2 or 3 at the time and in typical project home configuration of that era we had built our parent’s bedroom at the front of the house while the kids rooms and the guest room was at the back of the house. It meant tha there could be up to 4 closed doors between us and the kids, which did mean that if they needed us they had to yell loud.
We rarely closed all the doors, because Sam was still of the age where he needed someone to come and wipe his bottom. Inevitably once or twice a week we would hear this little voice ring thru the house… ‘hey muuuuum… can you please come and wipe my bottom?…’
(My name wasn’t ‘mum’ so obviously it didn’t concern me
However on the night Darryl stayed with us we couldn’t hear Sam yelling and calling for us. So being the youth leader from way back that he is Darryl stepped up to the job, sorted him out and sent him back to bed.
We found out the next day and it has been the subject of jokes ever since. ‘One day we are gonna introduce you to the bloke who has really met you up close and personal.’ Sam and Darryl never did get to meet as adults, but I know it would have been a fun conversation
Most blokes wouldn’t want that said of them, but it was true of him, certainly in his younger years. Generous, kind and sensitive, a kid who never wanted to impose on you in any way.
One of the things we did well as a family was ‘holidays’. And its from there that so many of our best memories are drawn. On every holiday we gave the kids ‘holiday money’, a usually pretty generous amount that would allow them to buy something cool as well as the usual lollies and ice creams.
We began this practice when we did our first lap of Oz in 2009, but every holiday from there on would begin with one of them asking, ‘Hey dad?… Are we gonna get any holiday money on this trip?’ (Just in case I’d forgotten…)
Then one year I thought I’d make it interesting…
‘Of course, how much would you like?’ I responded.
‘What do you mean?’ Sam asked.
‘Well you tell me – how much do you want?’
‘Really?…’ chipped in Ellie – just checking… She knew me well enough to know it could be a ruse.
‘Yep – how much?’ I asked.
‘Well…’ Sam began, ‘I don’t really need that much. And you guys are paying for the fuel and for the whole holiday… So I dunno… $10 maybe?’
This was Sam. Meanwhile true Ellie is glaring at him like he’s insane. This is the opportunity to fleece the oldies and Sam is royally screwing it up!
‘How about you Ellie? How much would you like?’
I could see her face in the rear view mirror trying to work out if this was a trick question, or if I was serious… Eventually she decided to roll with it. ‘$300 I reckon.’ Said confidently and like we were getting off light.
‘Well here’s the deal guys’, I said. ‘You two need to go away and agree on a figure – then come back and tell us what it is and that will be the amount.’
And so the argy bargey began! And no matter how much was agreed on Sam would always take the money apologetically as if he was robbing us.
Even in his Uni years when he was living out of home and the cost of living started to get out of control, we sat with him and offered him another $100/week to pay for things. His response? Yep the same
Do you remember where you were when the Twin Towers came down? I imagine most of us over 40 years of age will. I was on an Arrow leadership conference in Melbourne and I was sharing a room with a really nice guy who was a terrible snorer. Every night was near impossible to sleep as he started to rattle & snort – until the night he didn’t come back to the room until the early hours of the morning. He told me that a few of them had been watching the drama unfold in real time and clearly it was big news.
Twin Towers – Melbourne – Arrow conference
Princess Diana – I was leading a church meeting in our lounge room when the news came in.
Aussie Boomers win a bronze medal… (yeah that was big) I was in the Kirra Caravan Park hooting and hollering like a man possessed.
Sam dies – a non-descript piece of gravel verge about 10kms out of Busselton.
I was ambling thru K Mart when I saw Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks on the rack. Discovering it was a memoir for her husband who had died suddenly of a heart attack, I skimmed it and then decided instead to ‘audiobook’ it. (So that was the end of another month of my free allowance with Spotify…)
Brooks finished by stating that there is healing in re-telling a story – that the simple process of recounting events, facts, conversations, small details aids the healing process. I had already begun the post below – and I was feeling some of that. So if you have the stomach for it I am going to go back in time almost 12 months to the day Sam died and the moments immediately after we discovered this news. If not then this is your ‘trigger warning’ to stop scrolling now.
It was a sunny afternoon in Busselton and I had just finished speaking at the Pingelly Baptist Church Camp. We had eaten lunch with the tribe from the church and strolled back to our campsite. It was a fun weekend and it was also ‘job done’ and time to relax.
I was evaluating options – surf, cycle or just take a nap in the caravan?
I had dropped down to the next campsite to check out the caravan I was going to work on the next day. By coincidence I had snagged a job installing a diesel heater while in town – meaning the time was profitable as well as enjoyable.
I decided on a quick visit to the toilet before cycling – the sheer crowds I knew I’d face when surfing was inevitably going to disappoint. So I chose something a little more controllable. As I walked up the grass to the campsite toilets my phone rang – it was the work line – so immediately I declined the call. Why do people call on Sundays?…
However having completed the wordle in record time and still on the toilet I decided to check the voicemail that had been left to see what was so important it couldn’t wait until Monday. As I did my stomach tightened. It was Cosi, Sam’s partner and she sounded panicked. I As best I remember she said something like this:
‘Hamo – this is Cosi, as in Cosi, your son Sam’s partner. He’s not breathing and we are waiting on the helicopter to come and rescue. Start driving to Mandurah now!’
I’m not one to panic. So l listened to it again and then strolled back to the caravan to let Danelle know there might be an issue with Sam and Cosi. We knew they had taken their kayak a few kms offshore to a spot in Dawesville where they were going free-diving. They had become very proficient at this and the photos of large fish that appeared frequently on Insta feeds were clear evidence of their growing skills in this new found passion.
When I arrived at the caravan Danelle was already a little anxious as Cosi’s mum had rung to let us know their epirb had gone off. Clearly something was up…
I played the voicemail to her and her face went white. Her anxiety meter was pinging off the chart and we had to make a quick decision as to what we would do – just start driving or pack up the caravan and then drive. In the end we figured we would just come back to Busselton once we had sorted out whatever the issue was.
But the ‘problem’ at hand seemed to be rapidly magnifying in gravity.
With the little information we had we jumped in the Ranger and headed north out of Busselton, praying, begging God for Sam’s safe full recovery, hoping and waiting for more information. The car was silent except for the prayers.
Then when we were about 10km out of Busselton, Danelle’s phone rang again. It was C, Cosi’s dad who had drawn the short straw and needed to pass on the terrible news. I was driving, but my insides were rattling with nervous energy as I waited to hear what C was ringing to tell us. He was going to tell us that they had revived Sam, all was well and we could turn around and go back to a lazy afternoon. Right? That’s how these things turn out…
It was only a spilt second before I realised what the news actually was. Danelle was yelling – screaming ‘NO NO NO this can’t be true!!’ And I was hoping against hope that what I was witnessing wasn’t what I thought it could be. For a moment I kept driving, refusing to believe and hoping for a change in her demeanour. Thru her rage she just waved at me to pull over to the side of the road. I did and she passed the phone to me. My stomach sank.
‘I’m so sorry Andrew,’ C said.
I had nothing in that moment. I live on a pretty even keel emotionally, I don’t panic… but my son had died, my wife was frantic. I was bewildered and devastated in a way I had never experienced before. I had no learned response to a situation like this, so I thanked C for calling and hung up.
We sat in each others arms on the side of the road for a few minutes, crying, railing, asking ‘why? how?…’ Somehow we were trying to process this unfixable new reality. This news that had in a split second shattered us. Our dearly loved boy had died and our life that had been so beautiful and joyful was suddenly ransacked and destroyed.
March 24th – 1.30pm we got the news. It was on a piece of gravel 10kms out of Busso. I doubt I will ever forget.
My google timeline marks the spot where we stopped. I have driven past it once since then and had chills as I remember the moment.
Of course the immediate question was ‘What now?’ What do you do when your son has died? While your emotions are exploding in all directions you still need to pause and make some decisions. Suddenly there are a thousand decisions to make and you are in no fit state to make them.
What of the diesel heater I was due to fit tomorrow? That’s a dumb thought I know – but how do you call someone and tell them your son has died and you won’t be there?…
And what about Ellie who was on day one of a surf trip down the east coast? She was surfing Noosa when we found out. We just can’t tell her this over the phone… How do we get someone to her?
What about the caravan? Do we pack up and head back. Do we just keep driving and leave it there?
On that same Sunday, Margaret River Baptist Church voted us into an interim pastoral role to begin later that year. Suddenly we just didn’t care about pastoring any more.
Who do we start telling this terrible news? And how?…
A barrage of practical questions were charging at us.
So we made one decision. ‘Let’s go back to the campsite, pack up the caravan and head for Mandurah where the water police would be bringing Sam’s body in.’
Sam’s body… you don’t think of your son as a ‘body‘, until he is dead. We weren’t going to see Sam – we were going to see his ‘body’. Sam was gone…
So we turned the car around and headed back to our campsite.
‘This is really happening to us…’ I found myself muttering. We are ‘those poor people’…
We remembered a conversation with Sam in the kitchen a couple of weeks previous where he had returned from a dive and spoke of getting a ‘fuzzy head’ while he was out there. He was teetering on shallow water black out.
‘Pleasepromise me you won’t do this again …’ Danelle & Ellie pleaded. ‘Imagine us if you died...’ Literally… those words… that exact conversation. Sam had scared Ellie a few weeks prior, while diving at Cowaramup and then again at Mettams. He had disappeared under water for a very long time – on his own – Ellie had begun to panic. Sam had been pushing the limits, a very 21 year old thing to do, but in an activity where the margin for error was zero. He had been playing with fire and getting away with it.
We slowly packed up the caravan, trying to make sure we didn’t forget anything important in the fug that was now our reality. Then began the drive to Mandurah and the phone calls to relatives and friends.
How do you let someone know that your son has died? How do you give that news in any kind of gentle way. It just isn’t possible…
‘Hi S – hey some really bad news mate… Sam has died in a freediving accident. We don’t know all of the details but we are heading to Mandurah to find out more.’ It’s not the news you want to get in the middle of Adelaide airport, but where is a good place to give that news? Forever Adelaide airport will feel different for S & C.
Our top priority was to somehow get someone to Ellie and make sure she had a kind, loving human presence to care for her. Danelle let J know and she immediately booked the first flight to the Gold coast as well as flights back to Perth for her and Ellie. She was going to get to Ellie as fast she could. Meantime we called G & H, two close friends who live around the NSW border. It was a 3 hour drive for them to get to her, but they are dearly loved and trusted friends. They hit the road straight away. Friends just do that kind of stuff. Somehow we were going to get someone to her, but we had to make sure she didn’t get the news any other way beforehand.
We called other close friends and relayed the news. What can you say to news like this? There is nothing that could ever prepare any of us for the death of one of our kids. We asked A & S to meet us at the marina where Sam’s body would be brought. They had been young people in our youth ministry and we were their pastors. On this day they were going to be our pastors – people we knew without doubt we could trust with our lives in a time like this. They would meet us and somehow walk with us thru those first moments of intense, incomprehensible darkness.
I called my brother who felt it deeply. I could tell he was lost for anything to say. Our already very small family had lost a member – his nephew had died. He was deeply shocked.
Then in the middle of our calling others, my phone rang and it was Ellie on the other end. We hadn’t spoken to her. Had someone else already leaked the news to her? What if she knew and I declined her call? Do we take her call or decline it? This was our split second decision… we had to choose, so I hit the green button and waited for her voice.
‘Hi honey, how are you going?’ I asked.
‘Really good!’ she said cheerily. ‘Just had a cool surf at Noosa and now I’m back at the caravan park all set up in my campervan. How are things with you guys?’
How on earth do you answer that? I knew I couldn’t fudge a conversation in this headspace so I just figured I’d cut to the chase.
‘Honey I have some really bad news – the worst news.’ I took a breath. ‘Sam has died in a free-diving accident. I’m so sorry to tell you like this.’
Ellie erupted into every kind of terror and rage you can imagine. She had already told us that the worst thing that could ever happen to her would be losing Sam. These two had the most beautiful friendship. And here we were giving her this news over the phone while she sat on her own in a small campervan on the other side of the country. It couldn’t have been any worse.
We were now about halfway to the marina. We didn’t call anyone else and just kept talking with Ellie, all of us utterly torn apart by this news. I remembered speaking at church two weeks previous on the subject of idolatry – the final verse of 1 John. ‘Dear children keep yourselves from idols‘ In listing potential 21st C idols I spoke of ‘family’ and how we so often worship at the altar of our children. ‘I’m not sure how I’d ever cope if one of my kids died’, I said… i meant it – I really couldn’t imagine how that would impact my life – our family’s life.
But we were finding out in real time. We couldn’t get to Mandurah fast enough – or slow enough. But eventually, in deep dread, we pulled into the carpark and met A & S, Cosi and C & J as well as a small crew of police and rescue crew.
Hugs, tears, disbelief – belief.
We were ushered thru to see Sam lying on a stretcher and covered up to the neck. Two stern faced women held a sheet as if to keep him out of view of others – not that anyone was around. It was a stiff formal moment – and we sensed they wanted us to make it quick – which is so hard when you are in a space like this. It wasn’t a ‘perfunctory identification’ to us. It was a time when we needed to have some freedom to be with him, hold him one last time and cry into his beard. Small bubbles were forming on the side of his mouth. I prayed – a quick desperate prayer – ‘if ever we could use a miracle Jesus then now is that time…’ Nothing happened. What use is the power to raise the dead if you can’t actually do it?
Sam was dead – actually really dead… We weren’t allowed to touch him. He was now ‘evidence’ if there had been any foul play that had caused his death. Look but don’t touch… How!?…
They say it’s good to see ‘the body’ as it helps you confront reality. Maybe that’s true, but it was also the most soul wrenching moment of my life and the sense of hurry up around the moment was very hard to swallow. Poor Cosi had been promised one last time with Sam after we came out, but for some reason I couldn’t comprehend that was rescinded.
In a sidebar of my consciousness were all of the ‘why’ questions, the anger that somehow God hadn’t worked a miracle for our boy. I understand how those questions emerge, but my mind is just too rational to sit in that place for long. For better or worse I couldn’t hang Sam’s death on God – although I couldn’t fathom why he didn’t step in and save him…
From the day it happened I felt like I knew why Sam died. He died because he ran out of air and he thought he was more capable than he actually was. He swam off alone and left his ‘buddy’. In cold terms it was ‘human error’. The very error he had been asked to never stray into by the girls.
It was a stiff, cold farewell, Danelle and I looking at out son on a stretcher while 4 others stood and waited for us to wrap it up. We said goodbye and wandered back out of the gates where Danelle slumped to the ground in a mess of tears and rage, and I went off and filled in the necessary forms for the police – stinking paperwork…
When all the required information had been gathered we were free to go – but go where and do what? Home to unpack the caravan and get ready for the week ahead? I had diesel heater installations booked for Tues, Wed & Thurs. I was glad there was nothing on Monday as I thought ‘I’ll need a good day to just get my bearings.’ Yeah I really thought that.
I wasn’t close to ready for the deluge of pain that was about to descend on us. Strangely enough Tuesday’s job needed to postpone, then Wednesday’s cancelled and Thursdays’ was a new caravan that hadn’t been delivered, so I finished up with an ’empty’ week. Some would say that was God’s providence, but I think it plain old good luck. If God’s providence could see me work-less for a week then he could have gone the extra mile and given Sam a cubic inch more air in his lungs, couldn’t he hey? I think we have a funny way of attributing some stuff to God and not others.
The rest of the day is something of a haze for me. We drove home talking to Ellie most of the way until G & H arrived to meet her. When someone goes the extra mile like this for one of your kids you cannot be thankful enough. J arrived in the Gold Coast or Brisbane – I can’t remember – and went to get Ellie and take her home. She had hit the ground running as soon as she heard. She booked tickets and organised everything – so good – it was one ‘thing’ we didn’t have to stress over and we knew that between G & H and J, Ellie was in the best of care.
A & S came home with us and sat with us for a time. I was all at sea emotionally, but that tends to show up in me looking dazed and distracted. I have no issue with shedding tears, but it just isn’t in my make-up to cry a lot. It’s probably one of the few things I have found myself concerned about over the year – not that I haven’t cried enough – but perhaps that I have been perceived to not care as much because my default response is more stony silence than tears. Danelle couldn’t do much but cry. She was broken and distraught. Her boy was gone – possibly the worst thing that could have ever happened to her had just taken place. Danelle was created to be a mum – and after 8 or 9 painful years of infertility, to have two beautiful kids was everything she had dreamt of. Her life was organised around these two and she nurtured them beautifully. When people tell me I have wonderful children, I will openly say ‘all down to her,’ and mean it. The fact that I am a functioning human being is largely down to her as well. I didn’t bring a full kit of relationship skills to the table when we married, but after 34 years she has helped me grow in such a way that you wouldn’t be aware of what I was like in my early 20’s. (It wasn’t pretty…)
When A & S left we crawled into bed and curled up together for a time. Danelle barely slept. I think I could probably sleep thru the second coming if no one wakes me up, so I nodded off, but woke several times to sudden terror of the new reality we were facing.
The next morning I woke, got my bowl of museli and cup of coffee and went to sit on the couch to pray. It’s my morning ritual and it seemed as good a place as any to start the day. But how do you pray here? For sanity? For understanding? For just the capacity to get thru this single day. I honestly don’t know… I just sat and told him what I was feeling.
Yesterday had been so shocking that I felt like maybe adrenalin had carried us thru to bed time. But now we had another day to face the reality again – and we had a mountain of stuff to do. Family were coming and friends also descended on our home. People we didn’t know were texting and messaging. I had no idea that Sam’s life was going to impact so many people.
Early in the day P rang – a good mate of many years – his voice shaky. ‘Hamo I’m hearing that Sam has died. Is this true?’
‘Yeah it is mate.’ I replied.
I could feel his devastation at our loss. We both wept thru a brief conversation. What can you say in these moments?
Ellie arrived with J after a late night flight. She had barely slept. We just stood and cried together, somehow trying to process that the brightest spark in our family had been extinguished in a heartbeat – or a lack of one.
Texts and messages rolled in as the word spread. I did the obligatory facebook post, using the same photo of Sam that the newspaper used. His shirt was off, he was running across the beach, with his abs rippling… Forever now we would remember Sam in this way – the kid who was born with a six pack… but also with serious intellect, big IQ and EQ… all gone…
Just gone.
And here we are almost one year on. And he’s still gone. A few days after he died I was scrolling thru my phone and in the ‘notes’ app was a note entitled ‘if I die‘. It is some info for the family should I die suddenly, but what stood out to me was the word ‘if’, as if there is another possibility. I have changed it to ‘when I die’, just to recognise the reality of death. And yet somehow as a 60 year old with maybe 20-30 years to live (if all goes well) death feels less like a terrible end and a bit like a doorway to a realm where I will one day see Sam again. And in that thought there is both hope and joy.
This is my ‘version’ of what happened in that first 24 hours. Danelle will inevitably correct me on the bits I have got wrong, left out or just forgotten. But the detail is all a bit meh in light of the brutal reality of what we experienced. It’s like getting bludgeoned with a sledgehammer and then trying to remember the brand of the hammer.
If you’ve made it this far then it’s probably left you feeling some of the devastation we felt that day and that remains with us to this day. Thanks for sharing the load. There have been many who have genuinely sought us out and cared for us. 12 months really doesn’t feel very far down the road in this journey
Ok so summer is over, but that’s not what I mean. March is the month Sam died in last year so that means we are almost a full calendar year from his death. How does it feel this far down the track?
It actually doesn’t feel very ‘far down the track’ at all. When I ponder our live as it is right now i see something like this picture below
It’s a very happy family, all going well – except it looks like someone has defaced the image with an ugly black scrawl. Take away the scrawl and we probably would look as content and at peace with life as it’s possible to be – but the mess is there now – it’s in ‘super-permanent’ marker. One of us has died and the whole image is both beautiful and horrible at the same time – but it can be hard to see the beauty for the stain.
I had heard that one of the dangers of a significant grief experience is that other close relationships suffer. That hasn’t been our experience. Danelle, Ellie and I are as close as we have ever been and realise that we need each other, albeit in different ways at different times. At face value I think I would appear to be the one least affected by Sam’s death. I have been able to go to work, keep up my exercise schedule and cope with most of what is on my plate. I say ‘at face value’ because there isn’t a day goes by where my mind doesn’t return to bizarreness of our situation – to the permanence of death. Previously I used the image of looking at the sun as a way to describe how I interact with the grief experience. I can only look so long before I have to look away. Some days though I just sit and allow it to burn me up.
I’ve noticed that my capacity for writing poetry seems to have dialled back a notch, but that’s less about absence of struggle and more about an inability to really voice the current experience. But to think it’s been a year… I still remember the phone call and that day like it was yesterday. The whole thing is seared in my memory. For weeks after I would go cycling the bush tracks with Sam’s music playlists blasting in my ears – a way of staying in connection in some way I guess. Now when I play those songs they just transport me back to March 24th and the bewildering week that followed. i need to be in the right headspace.
I have used Facebook ‘memories’ as a balm most days, as it often throws up images of him or posts about the crazy things he had done. Some days it is balm and other days it is like salt. You can’t always tell what you are going to experience. This week has thrown up images of this time last year when life was sailing along so well. There are images of Sam and Cosi out on their kayak as well as pics of their catches each day they went spearfishing. They were really nailing this thing… Some of the happiest and funnest days of our lives.
I had this sign made for use when Danelle and I visited country towns. Our plan was to help out the smaller country churches and use the Caravan Weighing business to make some $$ along the way. We haven’t used the sign yet… And I don’t know when we will. Hopefully there will come a day when we can cheerfully head off and spend weekends in different places serving and helping as needed. But it isn’t looking like the near future.
In this middle of all of this Cosi (Sam’s partner) has taken up a job at an off grid youth camp in Victoria, so we feel the loss of her presence and her part in this whole experience. I feel like she has made a strong, positive move, but we miss her and that’s another hard experience to process.
I have set some goals and hopes for the year ahead, but I am holding them loosely. I know the emotional processing stuff is not my strong suit, but I do want to do it well, so filling the year with projects would probably be quite unhelpful. If for no other reason than it honours Sam, I want to leave space for regular ‘heart attacks’ where i stand still long enough to feel weak and panicky because my son is gone and isn’t coming home.
So for the rest of 2025 I will be ‘playing by ear’, and looking for the opportunities that i need to invest in, while also living with enough space to be there for Danelle & Ellie as well as myself when i need it.
We are 6 months into dog ownership now and still no regrets. I have spent time over summer hanging out with her as well as training her, although she is now a teenager and we are wrestling a little bit more for control. ‘Raise up a dog in the way she should go and when she is old she will not depart from it.’ (I know the Bible says something like that.) The truth is also that dogs have a free will just like I do and no matter what i do there are times when she plain ignores me when I call her, or runs right past me to chase a seagull. I’m hoping consistency and persistence will have the outcomes we are hoping for.
Recently I tried to take her SUPing up the Moore River and we managed to nail it on day 1. The hard part was figuring out how to get her on the board. I couldn’t do it while the board was stationary as it rocked too much with her weight but I discovered that if I simply paddled away from her she would follow me out into the water where i could grab her collar and help her climb aboard. I set out one day to paddle from the Rope swing into town – thinking it was about 2kms… Turns out it is 5kms and it took an hour so we were both ready to get off the board by then! Of course there was the trip back as well, so we both arrived home very weary and slept well.
So here we are almost one full year on and that’s where it’s at. In one sense our lives probably appear to be as enjoyable and fulfilling as you’d hope, but every part of them is tinged with sadness and the memories of what we had and the hopes now gone. If this whole mess has done nothing else it has left me longing more-so for eternity, for the coming of Jesus’ kingdom in it’s fullness and the restoration of all that is broken.
I wonder what impact it has had on our way of thinking that in many Bibles the words of Jesus are printed in red? The implication seems to be that they are possibly the most important parts of the Bible we can read.
Jesus’ words…
But why not highlight and focus on his actions? Why choose his words?
Could that be our inherent bias for learning via spoken words rather than by action? Could it be that we see him preaching and think ‘Ah this is the important part?’
What if we went thru and highlighted everything Jesus did? To go a step further, what if we deleted everything he taught and only left his actions (I know – tricky) But I wonder what we would see and what we might learn from this.
We say that actions speak louder than words, or even that our actions are evidence of what we believe but we have put the emphasis on the words. For many of us words are cheap and easy – we can talk a good game whether or not we follow thru with action. Obviously Jesus’ life and actions were in sync, but we have chosen his words as the focus.
So I propose a new blue letter Bible where the actions of Jesus are all highlighted in blue font because these acfions are the outcome of his teaching and the stuff we are to imitate.
I watched the cafe manager make his way toward us – the 3 of us sitting at a table set for 4 – but with no 4th person in sight. He walked our way and then I saw him glimpse the teary eyes of Danelle and I. He tuned into the tone of the table and gently veered away. Now wasn’t the time to check on the meals.
We had headed out for dinner to a local cafe, partly with the intent of discussing what we will do on Sam’s birthday next week – Feb 18 – and soon to be followed by the anniversary of his death on March 24. We asked ourselves what we’d ‘like to do‘ on these days…
Simply, we’d like not to be facing a day like this… But it’s too late for that now. We are neck deep in ugly grief.and these days are brutal reminders. We shouldn’t be sitting in a cafe red eyed from tears as we discuss what would be ‘significant’ or ‘nice’ or ‘appropriate’.
How the heck would we even know?
Are there books on this stuff? Do you YouTube it?
None of us wants to look away and just press on – go to work then home, followed by a gym session. And repeat. But what do you do?
It’s not like planning a birthday or wedding. The anticipation seems to take the form of dread. But the day is coming. We are placing ourselves firmly back into the reality of his life and death. We can only relive what we have lost. Yes I know we can ‘celebrate his life’ and all that, but it’s hard to keep a foot in both the celebration and mourning camp on the same day. And to be honest it just feels way more mournful than joyous.
I sometimes feel like I am looking at this whole experience thru a window of opaque glass – like I can make out what’s going on but I am not seeing the depth of it. I wonder if I have faced this loss square on or if I’m inadvertently dodging it. I’m not sure how to know that though.
Sometimes I do just look away – hit the off switch on the ‘frameo’ as pictures of him cycle thru reminding us of his life. Some days I don’t want to see those images. Other times I sit in the anguish and allow it to wound me again, reminding myself of how much there was to be grateful for – that we will meet again… It’s a strong hope.
We are now that family of 3 – yeah just 3… And you can’t help but feel the incompleteness that this reality brings.
And I’ve got kinda used to shedding tears in public places – because this is just how it is. Sometimes tears flow and it would be dishonourable to try and pretend they don’t. I am happy to shed tears for this boy. If you happen to be present or see it then just roll with it.
And as we have gone thru this year I have been reminded again more than ever that we all carry pain – some of us have the cold, brutal, permanent pain of a death, others the ongoing ever present pain of a marriage gone south, or a terminal illness. Some live with tormented minds – damaged souls, even if they present ok… I’d put money on it that everyone is dealing with pain of some sort.
And sometimes it’s hard to stop and explain it afresh to someone. I had a phone call this week with a person I had never met before and the longer we talked the more I felt that I needed to cue him into what had happened 11 months ago that had put out lives in this kind of holding pattern. I imagine it helped him make sense of our current life situation.
And if you find yourself in the presence of people you don’t know well who are in pain then take a cue from one of our local Thai Restaurant waiters. Danelle had dinner with my brother’s stepdaughter here a month or so back and over the evening both shed some tears at the losses they had experienced. At the end of the meal as they were paying the bill, the young waiter simply said ‘I don’t know what you are going thru, but I hope you’ll be ok.’ A simple kindness and a recognition that two people had shared their pain in his space.
You take a week off, spend it in the country, then next thing you know you are wondering what it would be like to move there – to live there permanently- to establish a new home and community.
And I guess the answer to that question probably depends largely on what you believe your sense of calling is and how that may play out in a new environment. My calling is embedded in the title of this blog – to be a missionary in my own backyard – specifically Australia. When given that title it becomes specific but also broad – ” Australia” is a very big and diverse place.
How does that work?
A quick side track before I get to the point – my sense of “calling” first developed after a basketball tour of the Philippines. I came home wanting to be a ‘sports missionary’. It was a way I could serve God and use my athletic capacity. So I headed off to Bible College to prepare for this adventure. However along the way, my focus on the Philippines got railroaded. The person I was supposed to meet to arrange things didn’t show up – and as it was the late 80’s we couldn’t just re-schedule a zoom call or Facetime. It was the era of actual handwritten letters or occasionally phone calls.
In that same year my own church was looking for a youth pastor and a series of events led me to put up my hand and get the role. For several years I was employed part time as a youth pastor at Scarborough Baptist Church and part time as a phys ed teacher at Scarborough High School. The same year 9 boys in my health ed class on Friday afternoon were the ones who fronted up to youth group later that evening- and they continued calling me ‘sir’.
I knew my heart and my focus was always on there who weren’t in church – who didn’t get it and who had very little idea about faith . It took me a long time to work out how to be a missionary in that space. I felt very constrained by the conventions of Baptist church life. I remember being thoroughly rebuked by an older man because an article in our local newspaper about our evening ‘ outreach’ service didn’t mention God or the Bible. I probably gave back as good as I got in that exchange, as by that time I was thoroughly infuriated by supposed ‘elders’ who lacked any kind of simple grace, let alone missionary acumen and vision.
As my time in youth ministry progressed I became increasingly concerned for how we related the gospel to post – moderns. (It was the 90’s) I read all the books and learned the missiology that went with this. There was a point when it dawned on me that my identity was still that of a missionary but of one to this great, deeply secular country.
I doubt I will ever venture overseas in mission, but I am constantly seeing opportunities and ‘people groups’ right here in our own backyard. The challenge I find is remembering that its not “on me” to reach them all. The Spirit is already at work and inviting people into life. My job is more that of the midwife – assisting with gestation and birth.
Old style Christendom mission work often involved big tent crusades or inviting people to events where they would get ‘saved,’ (or they would at least have an experience that left them feeling better than when they arrived.) That type of mission may still have a place somewhere , but my current context isnt one where I could imagine it successful.
I sense most mission in our country today happens as ‘missionaries’ stay in a place long enough for their lives to have credibility and for their message to have coherence with everyday life. It takes a long time for people to assess your life and see if you are the ‘real deal’, or just another rabid evangelist behaving like a multi-level marketer.
After 14 years in one community I feel like we can now say that people know who we are and also accept us as those people. We are the local ‘God botherers’ but we have also been able to communicate the message of Jesus in a way that makes sense to these people – and some accept the message while others ponder it further, or simply reject it. Its much the same scenario Paul worked with in Acts 17.
So back to my original musing. To pull stumps now and relocate to a new community, no matter how enticing would be very difficult. I sense it would have to be a 20 year / forever decision if we are going to remain true to our calling. I never put anything ‘off the table’ when it comes to future adventures, but I do constantly find myself wondering if we undervalue the power and impact of stability – being a permanent and solid presence in a specific place.
Yesterday while surfing I had the board hit me hard in the face – my teeth split my lip and there was a fair bit of blood. On the beach, or in the water were 4 or 5 people I could have asked for help because we have an existing relationship – but as it turned out 2 young girls walked with me up the beach while another man drove me home,’ I didn’t know any of them – but they were pretty keen to ensure I didn’t drive!
Stability means that over time you slowly get to know more people and they see you in good times and bad. They see lives lived in surrender to Jesus (as best we are able) and they have observed us in celebration, as well as in tragedy.
Sometimes words are needed to articulate why we live as we do – why our vision of an alternate kingdom and our surrender to a good king is the basis for our life. Sometimes actions and attitudes do the work themselves. But it happens slowly and often ‘unintentionally’, osmotically even. We just live our lives and hope that the allegiance to the king causes enough curiosity and maybe even inspiration for others to want to know more.
But it takes time. Stability takes time and even then it is not enough to simply inhabit the same home for 20 years, stability needs expression in presence and participation – being visible in the community as well as involved in some way. This is not rocket science. It’s as simple as walking the dog and being aware and engaged as you walk, It’s taking your kids to swimming lessons the hanging around and engaging. It’s prioritising local work in your business. It simply isn’t enough to exist, but neither is it a complicated process to be present and participating in a community.
To step it up one more notch, I would say the next priority is availability. In a world where people are often so busy , to have time for people is a gift. It’s in these spaces unfettered by rigid time constraints that conversations can wind into topics that get bypassed in small talk. Mission starts with stability , it gains traction with presence and participation, then it moves further with a commitment to availability and to genuine, sometimes costly engagement.
If you get to here then chances are you are living with a missionary posture, practicing missionary habits and then praying and trusting that the Great Missionary will be doing his work in peoples’ hearts and minds. All’s left to do is assist in the birth process and welcome new life.
Oh – and if you just moved house , or you’re about to do so, consider the next place you go as a potential 10-20 year commitment, then begin engaging in your community and see what develops.
Today is 10 months since Sam died – a pretty unremarkable number by any measure. No one really pays attention to ’10 months’, and why would you? Except for us, I guess, as it’s just a further statistical reminder of his absence.
A couple of videos of him laughing and joking around on Cosi’s instagram this morning stabbed my heart afresh. Somehow video is more ‘real’ than images – you hear his voice and pick up his tone – that unmistakeable goofy silliness… that warm, kind heart… Seeing his face sends tears down my face. I miss him.
At 10 months I feel like some of the dust has settled and we are figuring out how to live again as a family of 3 rather than 4. We spent a lot of time with Cosi over the last 10 months, but this week she relocated to an off-grid camp project in Vic where she is working for the year. For her it’s a brave adventure and a step towards finding some fresh vision for the future. I admire her courage and her willingness to pull stumps and invest in a new direction, but obviously all of us miss her presence and her shared experience of the grief journey. I doubt anyone ‘gets it’ like the 4 of us, so to have ‘one of us’ away for an extended time feels a bit wrenching – even if it is for her good.
10 months is also long enough for many people to move on and either forget that this happened or simply feel like ‘enough now’ of the grieving and missing him – time to look ahead. I wonder if people assume we have somehow put this thing to bed and are getting on with our lives? Those who have had similar experiences would just smile and say ‘yeah… right…’ Maybe those who have never known a deep loss (and I probably would have been in that box 10 months ago) would no longer feel it appropriate to be looking back. Time to dust yourself off and re-build your life – right?
Well yes – but actually no.
Each of us carries this in a different way, but what is common is that raw, searing pain is never far from the surface. I don’t know if it ever will be. So if you are a friend, know that we are still very ready and willing to talk about Sam and about how we are going.
On that note, it’s been a week for beautiful conversations and in that Danelle and I have both experienced real love and care.
Early in the week Danelle caught up with old friends from Scarborough days, a couple whose daughter had died and who wanted to see how we were going. It was penned as a meeting of the women so I wasn’t there, but Danelle came home feeling loved and seen by people who ‘got it’.
Last week I received a text inviting Danelle and I to lunch – a person wanting to check in and see how we were going. It wasn’t someone I am close to so their number wasn’t in my phone. I had to text back and say ‘thanks – but who is this?’ I guess we don’t keep everyone’s phone no’s all the time, but when I realised it was Mike, I was very happy to accept.
So Mike is someone neither of us knows that well – but who thought of us, took the time to drive an hour up from Bayswater to our local beach, to buy us lunch and sat and listened to where we are at. Over lunch as he asked very simple questions – ‘how are you going?’ ‘What has kept you going?’ ‘How can I pray for you?’ I found myself very teary as I reflected once again on the presence of God in the midst of this tragedy and of the love we have experienced from his people – from the ‘Church’ in it’s many shapes and forms. We retold Sam’s story, and as hard as that was we were reminded again that we have not been alone. One of my wrestles has been with the question ‘where is he now exactly?’ I get ‘to be absent from the body is present with the Lord’, but I’d like a GPS bearing to work from – or something more clear than we have in scripture. Mike is a respected and experience theologian, but even he wasn’t able to shed much more light on this mystery that perplexes us – where do we go when we die?
I know the simple answer is ‘heaven’, but it’s also a non-descript answer, or it conjures up unhelpful images from evangelical heritage. I have some ponderings as to what shape heaven may take, but my ideas are more rooted in trying to make sense of an alternate reality than anything I find in scripture. Mike prayed for us and we went home after a couple of hours saying ‘wow – how cool was that? Someone we don’t know that well drove right up here to spend time with us and to care for us…’ It was a reminder that there are people out there who are sharing this road with us in various forms – some who relate to our experience because of their own loss – some who just love us and care.
Then yesterday Sue came to visit, another friend from Scarborough days (isn’t it good when friendships go back 30-40 years?) and she is a woman who has known the very personal wrench of loss herself. She has had many years of walking the path of grief and part of what she has learnt is that the ‘dust settles’ for others – if not for us – so to have someone check in a bit later in the journey is valuable.
We chatted for 3 hours (which I don’t often do…) as she asked us similar questions of how we were going, where we were going, what life is like… It was another emotional conversation, but not in a heavy way. There was a lot of joy and hope in the room as well as a fair bit of mystery as we pondered some of the questions that leave us perplexed or confused. Like Mike, Sue drove a long way to come and sit in our lounge room and be with us, but her presence was a gift and as she left we looked at each other and said again, ‘wow… we are so blessed to have these good and beautiful people in our lives.’
And today I got a phone call from my old mate Scott, who is back from his year in the Kimberleys and was waiting for me at Gypsy Boy cafe at midday… It would have been a great conversation if I had been there, but we are actually scheduled for next Friday – thankfully his diary glitch and not mine! So next week I look forward to that lunch with another old friend.
So how are we 10 months on?
We are loved – very loved – and very cared for. We are still broken and beaten up – still wrenched here and there by raw emotion and at times ‘lost’ in the mess that is grief. But we are loved and carried by people who see us and who are brave enough to ask us the questions that they know will evoke pain – but will also bring healing.
So if you are wondering if we would welcome your visit or your concern or your care, chances are the answer is ‘absolutely!’ To have people willing to put aside their own concerns to come and listen to us has been a huge part of healing. Thank you to all of you – you know who you are.
