There Is Light For Us Again

Two years ago they lost both their sons in a drowning accident – now they’ve been blessed with a new baby girl

- Jana Van Der Merwe

For months following that tragic day they cried themselves to sleep every night, tortured by the loss of their two beautiful boys.

But even in their darkest hours they’d try to comfort each other, telling themselves there would be light in their lives again.

And now there is – a gorgeous little girl to ease the ache in their hearts and fill their home with activity and laughter again.

“Alexandra is very special to me,” Johan Porter says. “She’s her daddy’s queen. I’d do anything for her.”

Johan and his wife, Carmen, call their 10-month-old daughter their Covid baby because she was born in the midst of the pandemic. But she’s a lot more than that: she’s the child they’ve been blessed with after unimaginable loss.

The Porters, who emigrated from Pretoria to Morayfield near Brisbane in Australia 17 years ago, were shattered when their young sons, Michael (2) and Josh (16 months), drowned in the family swimming pool in March 2019.

Johan (54), a mechanic, still can’t talk about his boys without breaking down. “They went everywhere I went,” he says.

Carmen (43), who’s a teacher, is elsewhere in the house tending to little Alexandra while Johan talks to us via video call. But she won’t be joining us, he says – she took the death of the boys too hard to relive that terrible day or talk about her journey following the tragedy.

“I try to be strong for my wife. She’s still in counselling. I can’t afford to cry in front of her – I want to be there to support her.”