11/07/2026
Today is the 11th anniversary of my dad’s death, or his death-aversary as I call it.
And I freely admit that it’s taken me all of these 11 years to find any sort of equilibrium with this date. Each year the anniversary has been different.
Because when my dad died, it marked the beginning of the end of how things had operated in my family system.
And it was the start of profound changes in my life.
My friend Nats, whose been with me through all of this, observed:
I guess his death was the beginning of the loosening of the ties to family dysfunction and consciously redesigning your relational blueprint.
That’s an excellent in-a-nutshell summary although the reality of course is a lot messier.
As well as being a dad and a husband, Wal (Walter, Wally) was also an ocean yacht racer.
Taking a step back to look at this from both a systemic and symbolic viewpoint, I can see how he also assigned himself the role of yacht captain in our family system.
Because sailors don’t try to change the ocean, they just do everything they can to stay upright and move forward. They let the sails out or wind them back in. They change course and find ways to work with the ocean and the weather.
The ocean can present many conditions from calm through to all out feral. A sailor decides if they should take their boat out in those conditions or not.
And my dad was an ocean yacht racer. He sailed the perilous Melbourne to Hobart many times throughout his life. So he knew a thing or two about sailing in shocking conditions with the big waves and the big weather.
In my family system, my mother was the ocean from mid-range not-so-great, to flat out horrendous storms.
Her unprocessed traumas and deeply dysregulated emotional life was just another challenging condition for my dad to sail I guess.
And while dad tried to encourage me at an early age to be a sailor as well (I learned to sail sabots!), I was more prone to deep sea diving.
Holding my breath. Finding peace in the depths, and avoiding the storms in my own way, the best that I could.
The problem with a family system that’s built around compensation patterns instead of meeting people where they’re at to unwind the patterns, is that when one part of the system isn’t there anymore, everything crashes.
Because people are not really oceans or yachts.
Dad was the buffer. The one who kept the worst of my mother‘s untreated mental health to himself.
Of course it was never fully contained and our family system existed around her highs and lows, my brothers violence, and everyone walking on eggshells.
I guess my dad just tried to keep the ship sailing forward anyway he could. Until he wasn’t there anymore.
Then, the deep disturbances my mother never sought treatment for turned in my direction like a furious storm approaching.
Only I’m an underwater diver and not an ocean yacht racer and I wasn’t prepared.
So our family system exploding two years after dad’s death wasn’t really a surprise.
The time between dad dying and now has been many things: a grief-fuelled life of distress, deep bouts of nihilism, and plenty of wishes to no longer exist.
To survive all of that required a lot of big changes in order to find joy in my life once again. Not only processing the loss of my dad a week before his 70th birthday, but also dealing with the loss of the rest of my family as well.
Moving to Queensland was one of the best things I’ve done for my mental health and physical safety. The powerful lands here that are so alive and supportive have helped to heal my very broken heart.
And because of this change, I found my way to the amazing work that is family constellations. Which was the first very real and tangible relief for me in processing what happened in my family.
Now I can see pathways forward that may not have been available to me if my dad was still alive.
I’m sad my dad didn’t get to live longer. He’d be 82 next week if he was still here. But maybe he was tired of sailing through stormy conditions.
Happy heavenly anniversary dad. I hope it’s always pleasant sailing wherever you are.
