Nadene's Guardian Angel - We Always Feel Jonah's Presence

The legend lives on in his beloved boys

- Cloe Willetts

Nadene Lomu vividly recalls the day she drove towards the Auckland Harbour Bridge, shaking uncontrollably with tears streaming down her face.

She wanted to put her foot down and drive off, to make the unbearable pain and torment stop. It’d been less than a year since her husband and All Black legend Jonah Lomu tragically died of a heart attack in their Epsom home, after his gruelling battle with kidney disease. In that moment, the mum-of-two saw no other way out of the darkness.

“Somehow I could hear Jonah’s voice saying over and over, ‘You can’t give up’,” recalls Nadene, 41, opening up to Woman’s Day about the extent of her struggles after the rugby great’s passing in November 2015.

“I managed to pull over and dial a few numbers before getting hold of my parents in Wellington, and they knew they needed to come up.”

She admits if it wasn’t for her devoted dad Mervyn and mum Lois Quirk, who now live nearby in Auckland, she probably wouldn’t be here.

“I was in such a bad place and it felt like it would never end,” Nadene weeps. Beside her are the lovely, well-mannered sons she had with Jonah – Brayley, 10, and nine-year-old Dhyreille – who play happily on a Nintendo Switch as she bravely explains reaching breaking point.