On (this) Grief

Myself (left) and Clive (right) in 2016 at the under 19 Lacrosse World Championship in BC, Canada. My younger brother was representing Australia in this tournament.

I’ve been fortunate through my life in that I’ve not experienced the loss of many relatives or friends so far. I was lucky enough to have three grandparents when I was born and I kept them into adulthood. My maternal grandmother made it to eighty-nine and my paternal grandfather made it to ninety-seven (his aim to was to beat the queen, he did so and then shuffled off his mortal coil. Point to Bruce). My maternal grandfather will be ninety-five this month. He’s still sharp as ever and despite being wheelchair bound, we get him out for all the family's events and it’s amazing having him with us.

This isn’t a piece about the loss of them. Losing my grandmother was tough, she’d battled dementia for years before she passed. Seeing a woman who had possessed a brilliant intellect, had studied pharmacy in an era before women were meant to be doing that sort of thing, then run a business with my grandfather, and raised five children along the way (the play pens were in the dispensary, and toddlers are the perfect height for stocking the low shelves, or so she said), reduced to what she was in the end was heartbreaking. Losing my grandfather was hard too, but his decline was fast and he didn’t suffer long. He was out for pizza with the boys on a Wednesday, had a stroke and was gone within days. There was not the long suffering, he had been physically active up until the end and had lived a full life.

This is about a man named Clive.

Clive was the best, he was what I had needed when he came into my life, and he is someone I feel I still need now that he is gone. I’m sure in the future I will talk about my daddy issues, but for now, suffice to say there was a young boy looking for his place in the world, scared of so much, angry at more, and in need of something. I didn’t know what the something was at the time. Purpose was one part of it, direction another. I don’t know quite how to explain the complexity of it all, but in the tumultuous puzzle of adolescence and growing up with a mental illness, I needed “coach”. Not someone to tell me what to do or tell me where I was going wrong. I needed the holistic, all-encompassing guidance of the truly great coaches and mentors. I needed Clive.

One of my cousins had started playing lacrosse, and when he explained to my brothers and me the wonderful world of whacking other people with sticks, we were all taken. We signed up the next season and were in. All of us played, between the four of us we played in rep teams, state teams, a national team, and a college team (two of us did most of the heavy lifting there). It was all thanks to Clive.

Clive founded the lacrosse club we played at when his son came of an age where he wanted to play a team sport, but there wasn’t a local lacrosse club and it was something of a family thing. Through the primary school his son attended he started a team, it grew into the club I play at, and am president of now.

A year ago, from the day this goes up, Clive passed away on his farm after a rapid decline following a discovery of late stage cancer. I was broken. So many of us were.

This last week I opened up to my cohort of year nine students in a talk about resilience about how that day, one year ago had affected me, and the importance of building your support team. I talked about the fact I had taken 2023 off from full time work in order to look after my mental health, I talked about how in 2024 I started in a new roll as the year level coordinator for year nines, and that one week into that new roll, I had lost the man who taught me how to teach and mentor others. The very roll I was meant to be doing. I was a mess and needed the support of my colleagues in the middle school team.

Opening up about that grief has humanised me to many of them. The students are friendlier this year than the same time last year and the cohorts are similar. I talked about grief and getting through it and two-hundred and seventy restless teenagers listened.

Clive was my coach when I started playing lacrosse, and he taught me my craft. He taught me what it meant to be the leader on the field, what it meant to be the person who took the brunt of the negatives, and how to step back when the glory was flowing. He then taught me to coach. I bloody love coaching. I only started coaching because I didn’t want to get stuck refereeing junior matches while still a junior myself. Clive took me under his wing and showed me the ropes. He showed me where coaching and being captain differed; he showed me where they were the same. He explained to me that I could be intimidating to some, and that as a big guy I needed to be aware of that. He told me that arseholes just say what is wrong, and that coaches are the ones who arrive with solutions ready to go, or with the enthusiasm to find those solutions together.

Clive gave me my first opportunity as an assistant coach at a national tournament, long before I was ready. He was there again when I took my first team to nationals as a head coach. I’ve coached at over a dozen national tournaments already, I’ve worked with hundreds of juniors, and a dozen or six seniors to boot. It was all because a man who saw potential in me, lit a fire in my belly and drove me to be a better version of myself.

At Clive’s funeral, everyone spoke about how Clive had come into their lives when they were in need, supported them through their challenges, sent them on their way and never asked for credit. While we grieved, this same story came up again and again. Clive had taken so many young people under his wing, ushered them onward to success and then stood back as they conquered the world.

I hadn’t seen Clive as often as I would have liked over the few years before he passed. He’d moved away from lacrosse and moved out to the countryside, saying that now feels like shitty reasons not to have seen him more. They are shitty reasons; we should always make the effort to see the people we love. I failed there. A year on from his passing I still think about all the times I wanted to share with him. I wanted him to read my first novel, should I have kids some day I would have wanted them to know the man who made me the man I am.

I cried a lot last year after Clive passed, writing this I’ve cried a bit too.

When our team won our division’s grand final in a triple over time nail biter, I wanted him to be there, watching the goalie he trained me to be as I came up with a selection of saves in overtime to keep us in the game. After we won that game, before we went back to the clubrooms to celebrate, I sat alone in my car and cried for quite a while. The medal was great, we earned it, but the solid metal felt hollow, the win tasted stale though it was still brand new.

The wound feels raw still, but I know that “Shepp” wasn’t one to dwell on these things, he was pragmatic, stoic, and at times a bit of a wise arse. He’d want me happy, he’d want me helping guide others toward their success like he guided me. Ushering those who need it toward goals they wouldn’t dream to set for themselves, lest they fall short. He’d want my first year as president of the club he created to be filled with success.

I once described the lacrosse club as a safe place where the broken toys the others wouldn’t play with could come and feel safe, and special. We’re a rag-tag ensemble of weirdos, a few outcasts, plenty of rough around the edge types, but we are all brought together because a great man wanted his son to be able to play a sport he loved.

I love you Clive. I hope you’d be proud.

Clive (left) and a beardless me (right) 2012