Originally by: Charles Case

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Originally by: fire 59

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To my horror my fears had been realised

I told my sister that I would be at her place within an hour.

I rang the Katoomba Police and spoke with the Police Officer who found my father. He was traumatised.

He told me on the phone that he had never witnessed anything quite like what he had found in my father's bed in his entire Police career. As a humanitarian and a nurse, I began to listen to him recount the events of he and his colleagues finding my fathers body. Or rather particular by the smell. The flies. The blood on the walls. He told me that it looked like a possible suicide. As I listened quietly to this Police officer it occurred to me, that my father's death did not only have a final impact on him, but was going to have a powerful rippling effect on many people.

I drove to my sister's house.

When I walked in the door of my sister's house, the air was tense. My other sister was there. The 14th October, happened to be her birthday. My brother in law was there as well.

I again rang the Police. This time the Hornsby Police, who delivered the news of the discovery of my father's body to my sister's. I asked the Sergeant to come back to the house and explain to me the course of action that we now needed to take. The Sergeant, in his duty, was visibly shaken by having to relay such news to the family. My father's family was in disbelief. Numb. Numb of the news. Rational normal people were making irrational decisions.

That afternoon, I asked my two sons to drive very carefully to their aunt's place. On telling the news of his grandfather's death to my second son, a physically strong young man in his third year of a Cabinetmaking apprenticeship, he collapsed. My sister and myself broke his fall. In telling my eldest son, the anguish and sadness that he showed was beginning to shake the usual rock solid foundation of my personality.

I could not drive home. My eldest son drove me home that night. As we were driving home, I had yet to tell my two youngest daughters of the news of their grandfather's death. Both of my daughters were hysterical and in disbelief. Numb. Not understanding. Incomprehensible. That this larger than life man, their Grandfather, was now no longer with us.

As the days passed the real agony of this story began.

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