Canberra dad Lach Searle on recovering from grief. Footage supplied

The Canberra Times

Lach Searle lost his wife Bec unexpectedly in 2014. In 2025, he's encouraging Canberrans to keep checking in with family and friends after they've lost a loved one.

Transcript

00:00It's a really lonely place and it's a hard thing to do.

00:09You know, all of a sudden you've got to literally on forms tick a box that says you're a widow or a widower.

00:18I'm really glad people checked in, asked if I was okay, because it showed that they cared.

00:25The last 10 years of my life I've been working through grief and loss and will do for the rest of my life.

00:44My name's Locke and my wife, Bec, died suddenly of sepsis when she was in her late 30s.

00:51She and I were together 18 years, we were married 11.

00:57We had two young children at this time, a three-year-old and a 23-month-old.

01:03So you've got to raise these young kids on your own.

01:06Not being able to share stuff with the person who wanted to see it at the moment.

01:12All right, bloody, you take this rod.

01:18Tom, take these two, please. Just watch the hooks.

01:22Everything was so sudden.

01:26And not just the suddenness of her desk, but the suddenness of,

01:30I've now got to raise these two kids on my own and they were so little.

01:39I, yeah, I cried a lot.

01:42What I'd do was go and have a shower and cry in the shower so the kids wouldn't hear me.

01:46Just let it sink and keep your rod tipped down.

01:50There's going to be times in their life, and there already has been,

01:54when they, they just miss their birth mum.

01:56Yeah, it should be sad.

01:59It'd be wrong if it wasn't sad.

02:02It wasn't days, it was months, if not years, where you work your way through it

02:08and you find your own strengths, I think you realise pretty quickly

02:13that those strengths are the people close to you as well.

02:17Let's get a photo for Sam.

02:27Oh, g'day mate.

02:28Hey, mate.

02:29How are ya?

02:30Are you good?

02:31What's happening?

02:32Sam's one of my best mates.

02:34Known him for nearly 30 years.

02:36He lives in New Zealand, he just turned up, I think, two days after Bec died

02:40and stayed at our place and stayed for a week or so.

02:44I didn't know what I needed, but he was just there.

02:47So, yeah, really special.

02:51Hey mate, how are you going?

02:53We'd chat weekly.

02:54Yeah, good to hear from you.

02:55Yeah, we'd probably message every two or three days.

02:57There were times when we were both in tears, but there were times when we were both,

03:00you know, having a good old laugh, which was, which was really nice.

03:04Nice.

03:05What I actually needed was for people to be okay with the fact that I had no idea what I needed.

03:12The best support was without doubt just listening and not judging and getting to know me in this new space,

03:21because you change as a person when you go through something like this.

03:25You can't, there's no possible way you could be the same person.

03:29Righto, good to see you mate. See you, take care. Bye, bye, bye, bye.

03:33That's what worked for me.

03:34People who have always just checked in.

03:37Who have always, regardless of I may not have answered a call three or four times, but they've rung again.

03:45Hey mate, how are you going? What's happening?

03:48There's definitely a massive wave of empathy and support that comes in those first days or weeks or even months.

03:59It's the months and the years after that are really important.

04:03This is a cracker because this is our first Mother's Day weekend when Loretta joined our family.

04:09Loretta's been amazing for me and the kids.

04:16I love that we're this little family with our own little story.

04:21Teenage kids who are so happy and healthy and funny and smart and annoying.

04:27I know that we're so strong and we can deal with whatever.

04:32The beauty of asking someone, are you okay, is a conversation could change a life.

04:40And that change for me was gradual.

04:44There were many are you okays, many check-ins.

04:47And when you do that in a really difficult time for that person, it shows that you really, really care.

05:02Just a moment, if you're sick, that's what they're part of.

05:07They're so nice.

05:08You can see.

05:09H-O-R-A-G-H-O-R-E-S-H-E-R-Z-U-S-H-O-N-E-R-Z-H-O-R-Z-H-E-R-E-R-O-R-Z-H-E-R-Z-H-S-H-L-R-C-Y-R-E-R-C-Y-R-C-H-S-H-R-H-R-C-H-R-C-H-R-C-H-R.

05:17Have I a really happy happy and happy and happy and happy.

05:19I'm happy for you to be blessed.

05:20But it wasn't so much.

05:21I can see it.

05:22The victory and I didn't see you.

Category

Transcript

Recommended