I’m not great at remembering dates – I will forget just about everyone’s birthday – but I will never forget March 24 2024. It was 1.25 pm if we’e being precise, because my google timeline shows exactly the time and place our car pulled to the side of the road, as we got the news that Sam had died. I guess he died around 1pm, but that was the moment we found out.

And it simply upended our world. Up until that day life had been as sweet as you could wish for. I was enjoying the balance that went with a fun, small business and itinerant work in country towns. Danelle was ready to kick off study in Clinical Pastoral Education with a view to becoming a hospital chaplain, Ellie was excelling in her work as a nurse and had found her second home in the waves, while Sam was powering thru Physiotherapy and in a serious relationship with Cosi. They had been adventuring into deeper waters with their kayak and spearfishing set up and were really nailing the freediving thing.

But if you know anything about freediving then you’d know it’s one of the most dangerous sporting activities in the world – not because of sharks or sea-life – but because people are prone to push themselves into dangerous spaces with breath-holding. And the space between the limit and too far is deceptively euphoric, making you feel like you’re invincible or you’re ‘tripping.’ That day Sam broke one of the fundamental rules of diving by swimming away from Cosi on his own. We don’t know all of what went down, but we do know he died by drowning. The Coroner’s report finally came in a few days back – a cold, factual email (with links at the bottom for those who may need support).

Before that day life still had it’s challenges. Sam had been battling a form of OCD and at times it drove him to the brink. But he was winning. He was on the move against it and making progress at the time he died. Cosi had found joy in life and a bloke who was able to match her intelligence, while also passing with flying colours on the EQ scale. We saw our families converging with a marriage at some point and we were looking forward to sharing life with the Palmers. Life wasn’t perfect – it’s too easy to make it sound like we went from being a 10/10 life to a 0/10. But if I had to give it a number it would be in the 8+ zone.

An explosion is a good analogy and even now we are still finding and picking up the pieces of a life that once felt healthy and full of joy. The remainder of 2024 was figuring out how to live in the space of grief while also acknowledging that we still have stuff that needs to happen. Ellie went back to work shortly after Sam’s funeral, having lost all of her annual leave to a 3 week grieving process. We have all had different forms of ‘hard’, but her’s has been particularly tough because she works as a nurse, caring for people and then going home to her unit where she had no one to process things with. It has been an ordeal watching her survive this year, and while I am beyond proud of her for the tenacity and courage she has shown I know it’s come at a cost. As a dad you wish you could simply reach in and extricate your daughter from this searing pain, but you realise there is nothing you can do, other than be present and love her as she goes thru it.

Danelle has been savaged by this whole thing, but she has also refused to bow to hopelessness or simple self pity. She has got out of bed each morning and opened her journal and her Bible and sat there until such time as she has been able to leave, often just weeping her way thru the start to another day. Danelle lives to be a mum – and she is ‘mum’ to many, many people. No one word captures her better than ‘mum‘ so to lose one of your own kids – who you fought so hard to get (IVF babies) – and who you have loved so deeply really tore her apart. I cannot thank enough the people who have been there for her – allowed her to rage, swear and cry time after time. She has not avoided the grief at all and I sense that while the pain is still raw there has been a lot of progress made in figuring out how to live with this loss.

I think I am still figuring out how this event has impacted me. I tend to operate on a fairly even keel emotionally, so while I know this has knocked me off centre, I haven’t felt angry or unable to continue. I went back to work the week after Sam died and I have tried to keep up my own disciplines of prayer, meditation and exercise and been ok with that. Where I notice the impact is when I am out cycling on the bush tracks and even if I am listening to a podcast or a book my mind cannot help but go to Sam in some way. It might be wondering ‘where he is’ (I know the answer is heaven – but I’d like more than that), wondering how we ever get life on track again, wondering how Danelle, Ellie and Cosi are going, wondering if I am ok or if I’m kidding myself… And so it goes on…

I feel ‘ok’. Really I do. Not on top of the world, but ok. I feel like the hope we have as Christians is real and that I can look forward to seeing Sam again. Sure, that doesn’t negate the pain – but it isn’t hope-less pain. I usually describe my experience as a deep sadness – it feels like a constant weight around my neck or a pain in my side. And yet it doesn’t stop me functioning. It was a very healthy year in the business and I was glad for the amount of work we had. My visits to help out country towns were limited, partly my own choice and partly that I didn’t want to take off and leave Danelle for a weekend.

One thing I committed to very early was the decision that this was not going to be the end of me. I will forever walk with a limp, and sadness will shape my life to some degree, but I was not going to let this tragedy take me down. I hope to allow it to form me, but not to break me. I don’t feel like I have ever come close to resignation or losing interest in life. Part of that is probably just my ‘wiring’ as an optimist. I know the damage this has done to me, but generally it doesn’t show up in significant ways day to day. It’s generally as simple as a memory flashing thru my mind and then sharing it with Danelle amidst a few tears. Sometimes it’s the ache of knowing he won’t ever call again, or roll into the house wet and salty. Probably the worst pain is that I won’t get to see the man he was going to become and we won’t get to meet the grandkids he would have had with Cosi.

Death has been a significant force in our life this year. The loss of my brother was another very sad event and while I know we are not getting any younger, Steve was only 57. He was a good man and I regret the fact that i allowed our relationship to stagnate and fizzle.

We took our caravan to Moore River last week so that some family members could use it for accomodation over Christmas. I had to wipe cobwebs off it because we have used it so rarely. For me it’s a ‘happy place’ so I’m hoping we will get back into it a little more this year. That said, we didn’t avoid holidays, having been blessed with a stay in Denmark courtesy of some kind friends and then a two week jaunt around Tasmania, which I am still paying for (in kgs). When Sam died I had managed to carve 11kgs off what had become a rather chubby 59 year old body. I was down to 80kg with 78 as the goal, but the onslaught of food that came from all around us, combined with simple comfort eating meant I slipped a bit over the year, then during our two weeks in Tassie I didn’t go shy on food, and of course Christmas / New year is just one massive binge. I’ve been going hard on the exercise front, but I need to recalibrate the diet and that is the project for January. Losing 5kg to hit the 78kg mark would be nice. Possibly ambitious… but not unachievable.

The decision we made to buy a dog last year was significant and beautiful. I hesitated, almost backed out and then jumped in with both feet. I can honestly say with us 3 months in, that there are no regrets. I have been walking her early morning and late afternoons, every day to try and make the connection that will stand us in good stead in the future as well as training her and making sure she doesn’t turn out to be one of those unmanageable mutts. It adds 6-8kms to my day depending on where we go and how long for. So as well as my regular exercise schedule, I have two dog walks each day… It’s lucky I am ‘semi retired’ as I don’t know how I’d do it as a full time worker!

I use the term semi-retired as it communicates the space I live in most easily. While actual ‘retirement’, as depicted in common thinking seems like a foreign concept, I have slowed down my pace of life and that has been wonderful in many ways.

I have a few irons in the fire for this year ahead, a few definites and a few ‘let’s wait and see’ projects. The ticking over of the calendar year marks the beginning on a new lap around the sun and psychologically it puts Sam’s death further back. It is now ‘last year’. It hasn’t changed much practically – but it now sounds less recent, even if it doesn’t feel it. And with a new year come new ideas, opportunities and projects. I would like to make an audio-book version of my book, The Future is Bivocational. I’d use my own voice and hopefully get it into the hands of non-readers. I might kick back into the novel I was writing, or I may try to pursue some of the other writing angles I currently have on the backburner. I’m always keen to help the country churches where we can, so we will see what develops on that front too.

New years eve, a normally celebratory event we spent with 2 very good friends who fed us and chatted until my eyes started to shut (around 9.30) 🙂 They know us and have been with us from the start. Then new years day we headed to Lancelin to hang out with some other very good friends – a surf, lunch and some genuine conversation. I feel like a broken record at times when I say the most beautiful part of the last 12 months has been feeling the love from family and friends and knowing we don’t walk alone.

So the year from Hell is over and you’d think things can only get better from here right?…