“I CHERISH EVERY MOMENT”

Eighteen months after the death of snowboarding champion Alex ‘Chumpy’ Pullin, the love of his life, Ellidy, gave birth to their daughter. And as their family is rocked by ongoing battles with illness and grief, little Minnie has brought the much-needed gift of hope.

- SAMANTHA TRENOWETH

Ellidy Pullin is sunkissed, sandy-haired, brimming with life. She grew up on the long, yellow arc of Sydney’s Narrabeen Beach, which blessed her with a love of nature, a dusting of freckles, a free spirit and an open-hearted optimism. These are all qualities that the love of her life, the late snowboarding champ Alex ‘Chumpy’ Pullin treasured. Eighteen months after his death, cradling their little one Minnie in her arms, not one of those qualities has dimmed – in spite of a fierce buffeting by heartache.

“Now that life has flashed in front of my eyes, I’ve realised that it is all so fragile,” she says. “So I take every moment as it comes. Nothing really bad had ever happened in my life, and then the worst thing I could imagine happened. It’s taught me to be so much more caring for other people’s feelings and emotions, it’s taught me to be more present, and I’m not afraid of death. I think I’m really not afraid of anything now. I feel like, if I can handle losing Chump, I can handle anything.”

In part, that’s why Ellidy has chosen to share her story with The Weekly – so that other young women who find themselves suddenly, shockingly, widowed might not feel so alone. And because she wants to celebrate the birth of Minnie Alex Pullin, who has brought joy to so many lives.

“He was my everything”

Alex grew up in Mansfield, at the foot of Mt Buller in the Victorian Alps. But he was a lover of both surf and snow, and for years, Ellidy says, they “floated in the same circles”.