My story - Remembering Bob

From her fog of grief in the year since Bob Hawke died, his daughter Sue Pieters-Hawke has rediscovered the man she adored and forged a deeper bond with stepmum Blanche.

- Sue Pieters-Hawke

What a year it’s been for all of us!

For me, the tone of the year was set by a phone call last May 16 from my stepmum, Blanche. I had just finished bottling my first ever brew of kombucha, and was in the midst of cleaning up. I answered it, there was silence, then her tremulous voice said “Darling ...” And I knew. My stomach lurched, my knees buckled, I called my kids, and took up smoking again for six weeks.

Many of you know what it is to grieve the loss of a parent, which I have found no less shocking for being expected, maybe even half-welcomed. The fact they are well known makes no difference at all to the impact. Grief is personal, varied, and at times breathtakingly intense and disabling. For a month after Dad died, apart from helping to organise the memorial, I did nothing but lie around watching television, sleeping, or playing mindless games. The word ‘orphan’ popped into my mind, seeming weird at 62, but they are both gone now. I felt physically numb, leaden, underwater.