David Kernahan
The gold in the fractures
A father who lost his son learns that grace is the choice to find beauty in the rubble, and live whole.
Kintsugi Studio
David Kernahan
A father who lost his son learns that grace is the choice to find beauty in the rubble, and live whole.
David Kernahan grew up in Scotland until age nine, when his family moved to Western Australia. He arrived at a new school as the outsider: nerdy, accented, unable to play the sports that defined belonging. At home and at school, there was no safe place, so he learned early to survive by turning inward and by looking after the people around him. His father told him that men don't cry. That lesson stuck. David trained as a mental health nurse, the first time he felt part of a team that accepted him. He became a minister, then left the church. He worked as CEO of several not-for-profits, giving homeless and vulnerable men the dignity of their names and their presence. He built a life that looked solid. He had four children, a marriage, a purpose.
In January 2009, his youngest son Matthew fell from a three-storey gutter. David sat by his bedside for a month, watching his son slip away. When Matthew's second bleed came and David knew his son would not want to live with severe disability, he made the choice to move to palliative care. In those final days, David kept silent vigil at Matthew's bed, honouring the life of the boy he had wanted to give everything to. The death of Matthew fractured the marriage. It also fractured something David had held separate for 38 years: his sexual identity. One night at two in the morning, David woke and knew he could not keep living divided. Either he would take his own life or he would find a way to be whole.
For four years after Matthew's death, David made a deliberate choice to find beauty in small things: a leaf turning in autumn, a flower in spring. That search for beauty was how he remembered grace and stayed alive. His ex-wife and he rebuilt a deep friendship, never criticizing each other to their children, maintaining their dignity through the wreckage. Today David lives as himself, integrated, at peace. He says there is no regret for the life he has had, only regret for the pain he caused. He carries Matthew's presence still. And he carries the belief that grace, beauty, and the choice to look for both are possible, even in the rubble.
“Grace is the gift that we are given whereby we can choose how we will respond to situations and to choose that in a way that brings good, hopefully brings good to other people.”
“There is no split inside me. And I lived probably from 13 to 51 with that split. There is a sense of integration that I have.”
“I could give them the dignity of acknowledging their presence when I spoke to them by simply using their name, wishing them well, smiling and giving them the dignity of you are a human being.”
The hero, today
David learned as a child to survive by becoming very internal, and that same resourcefulness that helped him survive also taught him poor boundaries, something he has had to work on throughout his life. When Matthew was conscious after his accident and anxious, David was there to hold him; when Matthew stopped being Matthew, David made the choice to move to palliative care rather than prolong his suffering. For four years after Matthew's death, David made a conscious decision to find beauty, a leaf changing in autumn, a flower in spring, because finding beauty was how he remembered grace and stayed alive. David lived for 38 years with an unresolved part of his sexual identity while in his marriage, and it was not until Matthew died and his marriage ended that he could no longer keep that separate. David's ex-wife and he maintained the dignity of never criticizing each other to their children, never speaking about each other negatively, and gradually rebuilt a strong friendship that lasted into her later years.
Yes. David Kernahan is a real person who shared their own story in their own words. Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit that shares first-person stories of overcoming adversity, told with the person's consent.
Kintsugi Heroes, a registered Australian not-for-profit. Every story is shared with the hero's own consent and reviewed under Kintsugi Heroes' trauma-informed content standard before it goes public.
David learned as a child to survive by becoming very internal, and that same resourcefulness that helped him survive also taught him poor boundaries, something he has had to work on throughout his life.
When Matthew was conscious after his accident and anxious, David was there to hold him; when Matthew stopped being Matthew, David made the choice to move to palliative care rather than prolong his suffering.
For four years after Matthew's death, David made a conscious decision to find beauty, a leaf changing in autumn, a flower in spring, because finding beauty was how he remembered grace and stayed alive.
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:30,000 Ah, David. John, how are you? I'm good. I am sorry. I caused confusion. I thought I had sent an email, but it was sitting in save, which was about providing a link to Riverside. Now, I don't mind whether it's Zoom or Riverside. What do you prefer? We're here now. Yeah. Yeah. If you're okay with here.
00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:53,000 Yeah, no, no, I can do that. I'll just shut down my riverside. Yeah, cool. How are you this morning? I am well, yes. Had a quiet Christmas. Oh, yeah. Is that by design or by circumstance? Yes.
00:00:54,000 --> 00:01:19,000 Oh, no, I enjoy a quiet Christmas. Right. Yeah, caught up with family on Christmas Eve and then just had a quiet Christmas. Yeah, beautiful. What about you? Quiet. Christmas isn't my favourite time. You know, like life was, you know, like Christmas was my wife's,
00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:46,000 you know, shine, shining moment on the year. She was so good at everything family and everything sort of organizational. That was her thing. And, you know, I just had a list of things to do. And, you know, as long as I got most of them done in mostly in time, my life was sweet, right? Christmas was an absolute treat. But when she went, yeah,
00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:53,000 You know, there was a big hole in our family. A family Christmas was impossible.
00:01:53,000 --> 00:02:18,000 Right. Yeah. So it took me a long time to work out how to approach Christmas, right, without destroying it for myself and everyone else. Right. So I became committed to having a Christmas of intention to not leak into everybody else's Christmas. Does that make sense? Right. It does. Yeah. It does. Yeah.
00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:46,000 So, yeah, which was, you know, took me some time to work out how to do it and, you know, how to be sort of gracious and generous about that. It does take time. It does, yeah, yeah. And your Friday at Christmas, do you connect to Christmas through, like, people or family or faith? How's your Christmas?
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David lived for 38 years with an unresolved part of his sexual identity while in his marriage, and it was not until Matthew died and his marriage ended that he could no longer keep that separate.
This conversation includes a quiet christmas without her, the pommy kid in a cricket school, his father telling him men don't cry, learning to look after the others, finding his tribe in mental health nursing and his father's judgment from the doorway.
00:02:47,000 --> 00:03:00,000 Look, I suppose as my children got older, I suppose Christmas doesn't really resonate for me.
00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:27,000 And I suppose for a couple of reasons. I grew up in the UK for about seven years. So Christmas was always associated with cold and the warmth of a fire, the smell of a pine tree, those sort of early memories. So when I came to Western, when we moved to Western Australia,
00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:56,000 And Christmas was heat and flies. It just never resonated. And then I suppose, too, for me, you know, growing up in the church, Christmas was always a busy time. And now that I'm no longer sort of associated with any church, it doesn't have the same meaning. But I catch up with my daughters and grandchildren and
00:03:56,000 --> 00:04:15,000 that so yeah that was good wow yeah oh well that's great you know like there's much to be you know a loving christmas is um better than a christmasy christmas i think yes that's true yeah that's true so um
00:04:17,000 --> 00:04:46,000 i'll get the christmas out of the way now right i'm i am recording but they'll cut that yeah simply because time of the year right it's it's kind of topical but um yeah it's yeah just before we sort of chat i know we've uh spoken about some big issues right but is there anything you don't want to talk about or is there anything you'd rather avoid go you know going down any particular tunnels or no no no happy to
00:04:48,000 --> 00:05:09,000 to cover areas and talk and yeah well good yeah fantastic thank you all right well look uh i'm i'll um say the word so the editors know it's we're about to start so i'll count us in from five and then i'll intro um
00:05:09,000 --> 00:05:36,000 And it won't be a detailed intro. It'll just be sort of a person with a story kind of intro. Yeah. And, oh, by the way, you were CEO of what organisation again? I've been CEO of a few. Oh. So a few not-for-profit organisations. Yeah. Yeah. Magic. All right, let's do it. Oh, crikey. Yeah.
00:05:37,000 --> 00:06:02,000 I really, if I'm going to do it, see that bloke? Yes. He looks a bit scared. That's for the riverside one. I don't want him popping out of, you know. All right. There you go. Freaking people out. All right. Cool. Let's do this. All right. Counting in, Ava, five, four, three, two, one.
00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:12,000 Ladies and gentlemen and listeners of Katoogi Heroes, welcome back to another podcast around stories that matter. And...
00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:40,000 You know, in Stories That Matter, we look for stories that are not only wonderful sort of personal narratives, but we look for stories that have, you know, the potential to help the community, you know, learn something, feel something, grow from that story. And I think today we're very lucky to have a man who has that kind of story, a man who has...
00:06:40,000 --> 00:07:08,000 Been in the ministry, a man who has left the ministry, who's raised a family, has suffered loss, has had the family break down, but all the while providing service to a community through his work in not-for-profits, helping homelessness, helping provide support for people who are disadvantaged. And you were CEO of...
00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:16,000 a number of not-for-profits. So, David Kernaghan, welcome to Kintsugi Heroes. Thank you so much for being here today.
00:07:16,000 --> 00:07:38,000 Thanks, John. Thank you for having me here. It's great to be here. Oh, the pleasure's ours. And I've kind of built up your story, but of course, every story starts with a young person brought into the world and being raised. Now, your first seven years were in England. What was that like? Yeah, in Scotland, actually. So my parents were Irish.
00:07:39,000 --> 00:08:00,000 And they had come out. My father was a minister, so a Baptist minister. They came out to Australia in the 50s and had a number of churches here. And then I was born here. And then because of the health of my mother...
00:08:00,000 --> 00:08:26,000 We went back to the UK and my father had a church in Scotland for seven years. And then we came back when I was nine. So, yeah, grew up in Scotland. And all through the very influential parts of childhood. So, you know, what did Scotland leave with you?
00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:54,000 It left with me, it was, well, Scotland was looking back a very, probably the happiest time in my first 20 years. Migrating back to Earth was a real struggle for me.
00:08:55,000 --> 00:09:06,000 which left me with a understanding of the whole issue of migration that many people go through. And look,
00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:31,000 I was a white kid going to a white school. So people would sort of say, oh, the issue of migration wasn't that big an issue for me. And in one sense, it wasn't. But in another sense, it was because I had suddenly arrived in this sort of school culture where sport was paramount.
00:09:31,000 --> 00:10:00,000 You had to be able to play football. You had to be able to play cricket. I couldn't do any of those things. So I was just this nerdy, pommy kid that wore socks and sandals, that had a strange accent, and that had this weird sort of church background. So, yeah, looking back, it was interesting. It was...
00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:25,000 Was it painful? Looking, it's interesting you say that because at the time, you're so busy. As a kid, I was so busy trying to survive it. You weren't aware. And also, like my father, his generation of men were very strong on the fact that, you know, you've got to be a bloke.
00:10:26,000 --> 00:10:38,000 And when you combine that with that strong sort of fundamentalist streak, you got this, you had to be this Christian sort of almost soldier and you had to wear this armor. And so, um,
00:10:40,000 --> 00:11:01,000 You know, I can remember my first experience of grief was leaving Scotland and crying as a nine-year-old on the train because I was leaving what I knew. And my father telling me off and telling me to pull myself together because I was a man and men didn't cry.
00:11:01,000 --> 00:11:24,000 And I wasn't to do that. And so that was sort of the background in which I grew up. So painful? No, I was surviving. Now as an adult, looking back, I think, yeah, I have a lot of sympathy for the nine-year-old I was and what I sort of had to navigate in that period. Yeah.
00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:34,000 because children are incredibly adaptable and find a way to get through
00:11:34,000 --> 00:11:54,000 The problem is we don't help them let it go once they get through and they bring it on to adult life. And of course, you went from a place where cold and snowy and the buildings you saw every day were older than the entire Western Australian community.
00:11:54,000 --> 00:12:18,000 So it was a real frontier adventure, right? Yes. How did you adapt? What were the things you did to say, well, this is my lot in life, flies, heat and cricket and footies? What was your safe place? I became very...
00:12:20,000 --> 00:12:33,000 I became very internal. So my safe place was inside myself because school wasn't a safe place.
00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:57,000 And in reality, home wasn't a safe place either. So I learned very early to be resourceful. I learned very early to, like many kids that are sort of in difficult home environments, I think we learn to look after the other.
00:12:57,000 --> 00:13:20,000 which is both a strength and a weakness and like when I look at my life in terms of like working with homelessness working so I trained initially as a mental health nurse I mean a lot of that came from my upbringing learning to look after the dynamics within the home
00:13:20,000 --> 00:13:50,000 So I was able to translate that and turn my working life. The issue is that you often end up with poor boundaries. And that's something that I've had to, you know, you say, you said earlier that we don't teach kids to let things go. And you're right, because one of the things I've had to learn over my life is how to have healthy boundaries and to have that in place. It's interesting. You talk about,
00:13:50,000 --> 00:14:16,000 healthy boundaries i don't know why that's not a subject in school but in your direction right that um that management of of your environment and and sort of um almost the rescuer right yeah is that uh did that uh set your direction i think it did to a large degree um
00:14:20,000 --> 00:14:48,000 So like my mother, I only found this out years later as an adult, my mother had severe postpartum depression when I was born. We, my mother and I had a very rocky relationship, pleasant on the surface, but a lot of icebergs that I had to navigate under the surface. Um,
00:14:49,000 --> 00:15:12,000 And when I found out that she had postpartum depression, of course, it made sense. But by that time, the relationship had actually broken down. Yeah. My father was, by the time I was born, and particularly when we came back to Australia, he was very busy trying to set himself up as sort of the man of God.
00:15:12,000 --> 00:15:26,000 establish himself in the church. He didn't really have time for the family. And so I was made to be the carer within the family dynamic. So yes, that did contribute to, um,
00:15:28,000 --> 00:15:55,000 my work in i mean it's complicated because it's never a straight causation but it did contribute um and it certainly contributed to my going into the church as a minister um as a young man yeah you don't get much more sort of committed to service than say a mental health nurse there's nothing sexy about being a mental health nurse
00:15:55,000 --> 00:16:24,000 So you've chosen that career. What did you find when you started training? I loved mental health, the whole area of mental health nursing. I find it fascinating in terms of how people coped with life or didn't cope. Yeah.
00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:45,000 And for some reason, I was always comfortable around even people that were acutely psychotic. I never felt scared around them, which was scary.
00:16:46,000 --> 00:17:13,000 I actually felt more, particularly when I was working in the area of homelessness with homeless men, even a man who would come in who was acutely psychotic never actually caused me as much anxiety as a person who was high on drugs. Yeah, yeah. That was something that I sort of always struggled with because a person high on drugs, you never knew exactly what they had taken or what...
00:17:13,000 --> 00:17:30,000 you know, the cycle as they came down. Um, so yeah, it was, I mean, my decision to go into, um, mental health nursing was purely economics at the time. So I had married at 19. Um,
00:17:32,000 --> 00:17:48,000 The job that I wanted to go into, I couldn't get into at that stage until I was 21. Right. And I needed to provide for my wife. And we were starting a family. So...
00:17:48,000 --> 00:18:15,000 I saw mental health nursing and I thought, oh, yeah, I can do that, you know. Young. You're young. You don't know anything about life. And so it's like, yeah, I'll do that. Yeah. And so I signed up and went into it. And it was, yeah, the best three, probably the best three and a half years. Because there was just such a...
00:18:16,000 --> 00:18:44,000 There was such a sense of teamwork amongst the other nurses. And I hadn't experienced that before, that sense of being part of a team. And it was also the first time I was working in a world that wasn't connected to the church. And it was just that whole experience of this whole world that was so different.
00:18:44,000 --> 00:19:13,000 um from what i had been grown up in yeah and i was actually surviving in it managing it that that brings up sort of two thoughts for me the first is um this idea of um you know was it the outlier finding his tribe right you know going through school and and trying yeah and the second one is uh you say it was not connected to the church
00:19:13,000 --> 00:19:41,000 But do you see a relationship between that service in the mental health space and, say, ministry? Your first point about being in that, excuse me, finding his tribe. Yeah, look, I think that is right. I think there was a real sense of,
00:19:43,000 --> 00:20:04,000 you know, the other nurses that I worked with, they accepted me. And I was contributing. And it was the first time I'd experienced that in my life. Your second point about sort of the connection with ministry, I always, yeah, it's,
00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:26,000 It's interesting because yes, there is. And yet what I find interesting, like when I had left the church and I was CEO, so I was CEO of one of the, it's an organization called St. Bartholomew's here in the West, which is a large Anglican. And at that stage it was crisis accommodation. So,
00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:54,000 I was looking after, the organisation was looking after around 74 men that were homeless or at risk of homelessness. And I can remember one weekend, because I was working on the Saturday, my parents came to see what I was doing. And it was interesting because as they were leaving,
00:20:56,000 --> 00:21:21,000 The sense that they gave me was that I was still a failure because I had left the church. Wow. And it was interesting because it was like, so here I am actually dealing with the pointy end of men who have complex issues, who have been rejected by society. I am giving them
00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:49,000 the dignity of a safe place. And yet, from the church's perspective, from my father's perspective, I was still a failure because I had left the structure of the church. And so it was always, you know, I struggled with that sense of failure for years. And it's only, I suppose...
00:21:49,000 --> 00:22:18,000 Yeah, as I got older, that I was able to put it into context and think, well, I did what I did. I did to the best of my ability, and that's enough. Wow. That's another sort of moment of adaptive resilience there, you know, like from, you know, families can be, you know, destructive. Yes.
00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:46,000 I'm fascinated about your call to ministry. So many people I talk to often describe that first step into something, you know, substantial as being driven by the needs or desires of others. Do you think, you know, was it your faith that was driving you to serve in the ministry or was it that expectation that you carried generationally? Oh, look.
00:22:48,000 --> 00:23:14,000 I think there were two drivers. One was the sense of, you know, growing up within that environment, I felt insecure and I felt inferior. Being a minister, being called by God,
00:23:16,000 --> 00:23:39,000 gave me a purpose and it helped balance the sense of insecurity so at a psychological level it was um you know that balanced for the insecurity i felt but a lot of it was to um to to try and get my father's approval
00:23:40,000 --> 00:24:07,000 And it was as simple as that. And I failed in that. It's a very tough test. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I, you know, in terms of, you know, both parents, I've had a very rocky relationship with both parents. Wow. And...
00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:29,000 So, yeah, I failed in terms of getting my father's approval, which was why, at some level, it was so devastating for me when Matthew died because I had wanted to give him all that I had never had from my father. Yeah. So...
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:56,000 So you were a minister for six years. Just before we move on to the family side of things, I just wondered, how do you see the church now? You left, and that must have been a courageous transition to get out of underneath all of that weight of disappointment and challenge.
00:24:56,000 --> 00:25:20,000 And also, you know, to be honest, the church is a very powerful system, right? It must have a gravitational pull. How did you get out? With difficulty. You're right about gravitational pull. I mean, it took me probably 10 years to really sort of...
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:51,000 I was minister of a church in Armidale here, which is a suburb out the east of Perth. And there has just been ongoing church fights. And I got to a point where I thought, I can't do this. So by that stage, I had four children under five. So four young kids under five. And
00:25:52,000 --> 00:26:04,000 So I told my father that I was resigning. His comment was, you can't resign. People will think you have had a moral failing. Oh, geez.
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:32,000 I was more concerned about what I was going to do in terms of my job just provide for the family we thought we were staying in a church house that they were renting and we thought that the church would allow us to stay in that house while we sorted out they didn't so we basically had to by the time I had finished the church I had to have a new job and somewhere to stay yeah
00:26:32,000 --> 00:27:01,000 So I went back as a nursing assistant. I'd worked in aged care as a nursing assistant. I went back and did that to support the family. And, but yeah, the whole journey coming out of the church, like I went from being Baptist. I went into the Anglican church and was actually accepted as for the priesthood and then said no.
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:30,000 I became Catholic. Wow. So I got all three bases covered. You had to choose which door, right? Yeah, that's right. And then became agnostic and atheist. Even though you were right by that gravitational pull, that desire to
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:59,000 to go back and I would try to go back, but it was like every time I went back, the religious abuse that I, yeah, it was abuse. The religious abuse I had experienced growing up would reactivate. And what I find interesting because, so I have three sisters. Yeah. Two of my sisters are still in the church. They married ministers as well. Wow.
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:24,000 and they could never understand why because they kept saying to me you need to come back to the church you need to come back um but they never understood religious abuse and how that rigor is going back into a church yeah um and so yeah i became
00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:54,000 I became atheist and that was largely watching my father die. I thought if you have preached about heaven all your life and cannot die with grace, it's not for me. But it was when Matthew died later that I came back to a
00:28:56,000 --> 00:29:21,000 a spiritual acceptance of the reality of a greater power than myself. But I don't, I don't have any structure in terms of the church for it. So now for me, it's like, yes, I accept that the church, a healthy church provides an important role for some people. Yeah.
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:34,000 um but the emphasis has to be on healthy because there can be a lot of damage and um yeah yeah extraordinary
00:29:34,000 --> 00:30:00,000 The interesting thing at that point, like, you know, from a practical, from a logistics point, you know, there is a living in the church, right? They kind of, you know, support that side of things. So you leaving, as you pointed out, you had to go find a job, you had four kids, you had to find a place to live, right? How did the family feel about that? Yeah.
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:14,000 Oh, well, for my family, my parents. Well, your wife and kids, how were they? Oh, well, it was a stressful time for them because, I mean, again, they were...
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:45,000 They were uprooted. They were in primary school. Suddenly they had to go and make friends in a new school. So it was a big change for them. And, yeah, for my wife at the time, I mean, there was a lot of anxiety about, so how do we now provide for the family in a way that we can continue to function, continue to live?
00:30:47,000 --> 00:31:09,000 so you had four kids uh you're out and making your way forward what um what was the biggest challenge for you like you ended up choosing to go into say not-for-profit and so on was that did you know that was an option no so
00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:40,000 I had been, as I said, I worked for a number of, it was probably about 18 months as a nursing assistant. And then the facility where I was working, they had set up a daycare and they needed a coordinator. So I stepped into that role. I was given that role and I did that for a couple of years and enjoyed that. So it was, I was managing sort of physios, a dietician, occupational therapists and sort of the team.
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:51,000 And I suppose that was my first step up into sort of management. And then St. Bartholomew's advertised for a new manager.
00:31:52,000 --> 00:32:19,000 And again, I was young and stupid enough and thought, oh, yeah, I can do that. Of course. So, yeah, I applied for the job. They didn't think I would last because, you know, they saw me as a greenhorn, no experience. But, yeah, I lasted 10 years in that role. Well, you showed them. That was good. But, of course...
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:49,000 If it's okay, I'll just ask about your kids, right? So as they grew, of course, you talked about the father-son dynamic and your son, Matthew, had an accident. So you were still quite young, right? Is it okay if you share a little bit about what you went through with Matthew's accident?
00:32:50,000 --> 00:33:15,000 Yeah, so, yeah, just to give context, I had so much of our fathering, I think, is based on the pattern of how we are fathered. And I think, you know, as fathers, we don't, it's not about being the perfect father, it's about being a good enough father.
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:42,000 And when we are good enough, we give the children that pattern that they can then use. I didn't have that pattern. So for me, fathering was always a two-step process. There was how I was brought up, and then I had to stop that and think about, so how do I want to act? Because the one thing I had determined when we started having children was...
00:33:42,000 --> 00:34:07,000 I was going to give my children a different upbringing than I had. So I had three girls and Matthew was my youngest. And certainly during Matthew's early teenage years, sort of around 14, 13 to 15, we went through a real difficult period with him and
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:31,000 And it was that sense for me as a father too, that dynamic where I've got this young man who's wanting to assert himself. Yeah. So you have, like, I had to decide where are my boundary lines, boundary line, and where am I going to be flexible? Um,
00:34:32,000 --> 00:35:01,000 but I can remember by the time he was 15, 16, just feeling burnt out. Um, I think a few people listening will recognize that feeling. Like, Oh, you just want them to grow up at all. And so we got Matthew's like, we then went through a period where we were very close. Um, and then, yeah. Um,
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:26,000 2009 um january so it was january the 18th 2009 so sunday morning we got the phone call that every parent dreads um that he had um he was in icu so he had been out um the night before with his friends
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:55,000 He had given his friend the key to his unit because he was, he had a unit, was living by himself. And then came home later and realized he didn't have the key. And being young and, you know, having had a bit of alcohol and not thinking straight, decided to climb the gutter. So he climbed the gutter. He was, his unit was on the third,
00:35:55,000 --> 00:36:16,000 He nearly made it, but the gutter gave way. So, yeah, fell about 14 metres, massive brain trauma, and was in ICU. We thought we were going to get him back.
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:35,000 So he was in ICU for probably about 10 days and started to come out of the coma and was able to recognise us and we were sort of communicating.
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:56,000 And then he was shifted to the acute trauma ward. But 24 hours in to the acute, he had another major bleed and so was back in ICU. And then we lost round.
00:36:56,000 --> 00:37:25,000 And he died the 18th of February. So exactly a month later on the date and around the same time as the accident. So, yeah. So that, you know, losing the death of a child, all death is challenging to deal with. Yeah.
00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:49,000 But for me, sort of Matthew's death marked sort of a point in my life where it's before and after. Yeah. You know, it's like two, I have lived in some senses, two lives. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:49,000 --> 00:38:15,000 That experience that month from everything possible to that whole aspect of living is shut down. I can imagine that can't fail to change you. Do you know what changes happened?
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:48,000 Um, I think there are multiple levels of change. Um, there is a sense where going through that, um, it's like
00:38:51,000 --> 00:39:21,000 you are wounded and you learn to live with the wound. But it's always there. Yeah. It's taken probably, well, it's been 16 years since. And it's probably only been in the last six to nine months that I feel strong enough to talk about it publicly. So my grief journey...
00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:41,000 I mean, is ongoing, but that sort of, if you like, you go through an acute phase and then you go through an acute, acute phase and you go through an acute phase. And I think it's taken me that long to...
00:39:43,000 --> 00:40:08,000 not just to deal with Matthew's death, but also then the subsequent breakdown of the marriage and all that that sort of entailed. So in one sense, it's been complicated. But I am very grateful that
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:33,000 that I was able in that final month to be with Matthew. Um, so when he was conscious, when he came out of the coma the first time and he was recognizing me, he was going through a lot of sort of anxiety and sort of fear. Um,
00:40:33,000 --> 00:41:00,000 and to be there and to hold, to be able to hold him and to be able to sort of be present to him. So yeah, it's I am, I am incredibly grateful. And I I'm also grateful
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:29,000 And this sounds, this sounds strange and I want to be careful saying it because I know it's not everyone's experience. But I knew that Matthew would not want to live with a disability. He had been very clear with me about that. And so when he had the major bleed,
00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:54,000 and was back in ICU, there was a point of time where I knew that he had gone. I, at an intuitive level, I knew that Matthew, as we knew, had passed, even though he was still alive. Yeah.
00:41:55,000 --> 00:42:23,000 And it was at that point that I said to the doctors there was to be no more medical intervention. Yeah. It was to go to palliative care. And I'm grateful I was able to be sensitive enough to that point and then to keep vigil in the remaining days of his life. Yeah.
00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:49,000 Because I think, as I mentioned to you before, in those final days, every time Matthew heard my voice, he would try to rally. He would try to sort of come out of his level of consciousness. So I took the decision that I would say goodbye and then I would just sit by his bed and keep vigil. So...
00:42:50,000 --> 00:43:18,000 We said our goodbyes on the Sunday morning. And then from the Sunday to the Wednesday when he passed, for me, it was keeping silent vigil for that time. And that, you know, that was challenging, difficult on so many levels. But I am glad I was able to honour his life by doing that for him.
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:50,000 it's, you know, there is no possibility of having procedures or guidelines or manual for going through what you went through with your son. But was there learning? For me? Yeah. Yeah, there was learning. There was, I mean, there's learning about Grish. Hmm.
00:43:50,000 --> 00:44:12,000 And I think as men, we don't breathe well. I think, you know, the usual pattern is we bury it. We press it down. And we have to learn. If we want to... If we want to honour the memory of...
00:44:12,000 --> 00:44:28,000 the people we love who have died, I think we have to learn to incorporate grief in a healthy way. And that's what I suppose I tried to do in the early days. I was always very, in the early days after Matthew passed, um,
00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:56,000 I made a decision. I would find beauty and I would find grace in life. Wow. Despite what had gone through. Yeah. And for the first three to four years, when it was really raw, I just kept coming back to that. I'll find beauty and I will find grace. And I think there is beauty and there is grace in life, even in difficult circumstances. Um,
00:44:57,000 --> 00:45:25,000 So I suppose learnings for me were about making that choice because it is so easy to live our lives grieving those who have died in a way that doesn't honour their life. I think the whole journey of grief has been sort of...
00:45:27,000 --> 00:45:46,000 a learning curve it's made me i think um and it comes back to what i said earlier about that wounding okay that wound it's made me softer and sort of more compassionate in some ways yeah um
00:45:48,000 --> 00:46:04,000 But I think also it is the fact that sometimes we have to accept the decisions our children take, even when there's drastic consequences. And that was one of the things that
00:46:05,000 --> 00:46:19,000 You know, it took me a long time to accept with Matthew that he had made a decision. Yeah. Terrible decision, but it was still his decision. And to live at peace with that. Yeah.
00:46:21,000 --> 00:46:48,000 The concept of dignity of risk, right? Once we provide our kids with the space to be themselves, they need to honor that. Yeah, that's right. It's an incredibly courageous position to take and slightly outside of the norm, right? Did you encounter judgment in this?
00:46:53,000 --> 00:47:05,000 Not directly to my face, but I was aware that my sort of biological family I grew up in,
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:30,000 their view would have, particularly my father's view, would have been this is the consequence of not bringing, not drawing up, bring your children up in the church. So, but, you know, not in terms of...
00:47:30,000 --> 00:47:39,000 those friends who stood by me in that time, there was no judgment. There was an understanding. Yeah.
00:47:41,000 --> 00:48:08,000 You go through grief and you so beautifully described that acute, acute process. Of course, other people love Matthew and they had grief, your family, your direct family. And you mentioned the breakup with your wife. Was that a collateral consequence of what you went through?
00:48:10,000 --> 00:48:38,000 Yeah, I think my, sorry, no, ex-wife and I had very different grieving styles. And I think that contributes to relationship challenges. And there was stuff from my past that
00:48:42,000 --> 00:49:01,000 you know, I had never resolved, um, in terms of my, in terms of my sexual identity. So I had never resolved that growing up in the church. Um, and I couldn't,
00:49:03,000 --> 00:49:32,000 So one of the things being in a straight marriage is I learnt how to separate and I, and I did that for, we were married for 33 years and I kept that separate. When Matthew died and then the different grief styles, I was not able to keep that separate. Um,
00:49:34,000 --> 00:50:04,000 And I knew I would, I can remember I had been asleep and I woke up one morning at two o'clock and I sat upright and said, I can't do this. I'll either suicide or I'll go mad. I've got to find a way to live. And so that was really, I suppose, the beginning of sort of leaving the marriage. So, but that was an incredibly...
00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:29,000 You know, for the family as a unit, to lose for Matthew, our son and brother, who have died, and then 18 months later to lose that family structure was a very difficult time for everyone. So you've taken on...
00:50:29,000 --> 00:50:54,000 the most difficult things, both the providence of something happening to you and then you opened up something inside you that needed to be resolved, right? And that's a huge challenge you've embraced in a short period of time. Do you think that's been successful, worth it?
00:50:56,000 --> 00:51:24,000 The grief journey, getting through, making those decisions and then your personal identity and living in a vulnerable place, being authentic about that. Yes, I think it is because there is no split inside me. And I lived
00:51:26,000 --> 00:51:49,000 probably from 13 to 51 with that split. Wow. There is no... I can honestly say that there is a sense of integration that I have. That doesn't mean that I'm not mindful of the pain. Mm-hmm.
00:51:49,000 --> 00:52:18,000 that my actions caused and yet it is it is complicated because um i never regret having children yeah of course and if i hadn't married i wouldn't have had children and you know someone asked me the other um the other week did i have regrets
00:52:23,000 --> 00:52:48,000 There is regret for the pain that I have caused. But there is not regret for the life that I have had, if that makes sense. Yeah. And I think, you know, we all cause pain. We all cause others pain in life. And we have to take responsibility for that. And yet I am incredibly grateful that
00:52:52,000 --> 00:53:18,000 you know, despite everything, I do have a sense of peace with who I am now. Wow. And a sense of, still have a sense of Matthew's presence and can still say that despite everything, there is joy, there is beauty, there is grace. Right.
00:53:18,000 --> 00:53:44,000 However, whether it's religious grace or just grace of life, I think that is still present. That's such a powerful choice to make. It really renders the idea of a good thing or a bad thing happening to you, it renders that meaningless. Yeah.
00:53:44,000 --> 00:54:05,000 So what do you now see as grace? What is grace? How do you define that? How do I define grace? Oh, I haven't been asked that before. I think for me now.
00:54:12,000 --> 00:54:41,000 Grace is the gift that we are given. The gift that we are given whereby we can choose how we will respond to situations and to choose that in a way that brings good, hopefully brings good to other people.
00:54:41,000 --> 00:54:48,000 as much as we can yeah yeah the social researcher um hugh mckay
00:54:49,000 --> 00:55:15,000 I heard him say that kindness is the only thing that we can offer anyone, even if we don't have fondness for them. And in some ways, I think that's an important aspect of the humanity of grief and loss and forgiveness and moving on.
00:55:16,000 --> 00:55:46,000 Do you, you know, is kindness grace and is that important? Yeah, it is. It's interesting you say that because it reminds me when I was working with the homeless men, you know, there was so many of those men had such complex issues and I knew that there was nothing I could do that was going to change their life. Hmm.
00:55:47,000 --> 00:56:14,000 but what i could do was to give them the dignity of acknowledging their presence when i spoke to them by simply using their name yeah wishing them well smiling and giving them the dignity of you are a human being and i felt then that if that's all i could do for someone
00:56:14,000 --> 00:56:38,000 That was enough because I couldn't deal with all the rest of the issues. And I think you're right. It is about that as a society, as individuals and as a society, we need to relearn the importance of kindness. Yeah. Because we might not particularly like someone. Yeah.
00:56:39,000 --> 00:57:02,000 But we can still be kind and we don't know what choices they have made for them to end up where they are as well. Absolutely. Fascinated about your time on the front line. Right. And as you paint a picture there of, you know, that
00:57:02,000 --> 00:57:21,000 the humanity in the gutter, right? You know, and we might look at those lives as failures. Were you seeing failures or were you seeing, was it a mission or was, like you describe it so as dignity now,
00:57:21,000 --> 00:57:51,000 Was that the, you know, the driver for helping? Like I'm fascinated because, you know, there's that sense of, you know, the complexity of their mistakes seems to render them, you know, without ability to be helped. And yet they still have the capacity to choose. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Look, I think...
00:57:54,000 --> 00:58:21,000 I just, I could remember particularly saying Bartholomew's where there was so, as I said, there was between, we had between 75 and 80, like they had made choices and those choices had to be respected. Yeah. And
00:58:22,000 --> 00:58:51,000 The reality was that many of them, because of the pain they carried, they weren't going to change. And I often say, and I would say to, you know, staff would say, oh, we need to get them into, you know, drug rehabilitation. We need to get them into alcohol rehabilitation. And at one level, that's right. But at another level, the drug dependency, the alcohol was keeping them functioning. It's an adaptive behaviour, you know. Exactly. Exactly.
00:58:51,000 --> 00:59:11,000 You know, and it gave them a reason to get out in the morning because they needed to go and find the next hit. Terrible to say, but that was the reality. And I used to say, until they can deal with the pain, they can't change the behavior. And I know that for myself. You know, the pain that I've sort of
00:59:13,000 --> 00:59:37,000 And it's not at the same level that they have. But at some level, I have engaged in behaviors that haven't been helpful, but have helped me manage the pain that I was feeling. So until that sort of pain gets dealt with, people don't shift. Yeah, sorry, I'm just going to.
00:59:43,000 --> 01:00:01,000 And I did it until, I can remember, so I was at another organisation, 55 Central, when Matthew died. And I can remember going in one morning and my office was upstairs and I looked down and
01:00:01,000 --> 01:00:22,000 And there was a group of men just sitting there waiting. So their benefits was the next couple of days. They'd run out of money. They had nowhere to go. So they were just sort of sitting around. And I can remember looking at them and just thinking, I can't do this anymore. Wow.
01:00:22,000 --> 01:00:43,000 i can't do it and so i handed in my resignation and left and then again had to find another job but um yeah done that a few times in my life so that's your burnout management process right i get it like burnout's real
01:00:43,000 --> 01:01:09,000 Yeah. Yeah. And very debilitating. So congratulations on knowing, right? Yeah. Like that's, you know, like there's a, you know, very always often a sad story about someone not realizing they're in a, in a place of, of slow, slow disintegration of their being. Yeah. I'm interested. I know you're a,
01:01:10,000 --> 01:01:37,000 your uh you have reconciled somewhat with your wife um how how did that come about and was that restorative or was that kindness you know so it took a long it took a number of years um and look for
01:01:41,000 --> 01:02:06,000 It is very difficult. Any divorce, any separation is difficult. I think when you leave your marriage because you are same-sex attracted, it brings another level of complexity because, as my ex-wife or then-wife said to me,
01:02:08,000 --> 01:02:30,000 has it all been a sham yeah and and by no means was it a sham i mean my marriage was and remains one of the foundational relationships of my life and i am grateful for that but it did take um
01:02:30,000 --> 01:03:00,000 a number of years and it was really about giving each other space. So we never spoke about each other to the children. We maintained the dignity of, you know, we just never criticized. We never spoke. We made sure that family gatherings were in spaces where people could come and go rather than. And so it was, you know, if after 20 minutes I'd had enough,
01:03:00,000 --> 01:03:21,000 I could leave. Yeah. She could do the same. And then gradually, um, we, we managed to sort of get back to a strong friendship. Um, she,
01:03:23,000 --> 01:03:51,000 she has been diagnosed with Lewy bodies, dementia and Parkinson's, so is in care. But when she was in hospital, um, uh, before she went into care, I went to visit her with my partner and it was lovely because we were sitting in either side of her bed and, um, she took my partner's hand and she turned to me and she said,
01:03:51,000 --> 01:04:21,000 you know, we've achieved what a lot of couples don't get to achieve. And to me, that was a very special moment. Yeah. Because after everything, there was a recognition that, yes, we loved each other. We still love each other, but our paths had taken a different direction. Amazing.
01:04:22,000 --> 01:04:45,000 Often you hear people who like trekking, hiking, talk about the difficulty of the track being a part of the spectacular nature of the experience, right? Yes. Have you had a spectacular life? Is that what you're talking about?
01:04:50,000 --> 01:05:18,000 See, I don't see my life as anything but ordinary. I just, I think, I think I was gifted this life and it's been incredibly challenging at times.
01:05:22,000 --> 01:05:51,000 And yet, I suppose what I would like would be that sense of I've done my best with what I was given. And I hope that I've left my children, my grandchildren and people around me a sense of, yes, life can be really in the trenches at times.
01:05:53,000 --> 01:06:12,000 But there is still, I used to come back to that term, there is still grace, there is still beauty, there is still the possibility of making a change in someone's life. And that's all we need to do. That's beautiful.
01:06:14,000 --> 01:06:39,000 And, you know, an incredible share today. Just maybe if we could round up with a question that's more sort of, you know, practical. You've dealt with so much and you've done it with grace, if I may say. What do you think others can do to learn from you to embrace the concept of grace?
01:06:47,000 --> 01:07:11,000 I think, and particularly for men, I think there's two things. I think start with beauty. What do you find in your life that resonates beauty? Yeah. So for me, for example,
01:07:13,000 --> 01:07:22,000 Those four years after Matthew died, when I made my conscious decision, I would walk into work and
01:07:23,000 --> 01:07:48,000 At autumn, if I saw a leaf change, I would take a photo of it. Or if in spring I saw a flower, because that was how I remembered beauty. Like other people, you know, blokes that are fishermen, that enjoy fishing by the ocean, for them, that might be beauty. But it's about finding beauty.
01:07:48,000 --> 01:08:11,000 in our lives and i think as men we we are so practically orientated we don't think about beauty and the other thing i would say is all the importance of all finding that which is bigger than ourselves yeah yeah and again it'll depend upon you know
01:08:11,000 --> 01:08:32,000 Each individual man. But I think once we start to see beauty and once we start to see awe, then we can start to find grace because we see that beauty is outside ourselves, awe is outside ourselves. And it's like in that we start to allow ourselves to experience grace. Yeah.
01:08:33,000 --> 01:08:50,000 Rather than, oh, I've got to try and find grace, but I don't know what it means. But I think we all have a concept of what is beautiful and what we enjoy in beauty. And we all have a concept of what awe is. So start with those and then allow grace to flow.
01:08:52,000 --> 01:09:20,000 Wonderful. I love that idea, particularly of all, right, the sense of opening up to, you know, the sense. And, of course, you have definitely opened up to another level of life and acceptance, and it's been so valuable to hear your insights. Thank you for a courageous and important story you've shared with us today, David. Thanks, John. Thank you, mate.
01:09:20,000 --> 01:09:25,000 thank you thank you and all the best yeah thank you yes
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