Rex Jory: Grieving my son David has been hard, but I am ready to move on

One year ago, my son David died after a brave battle with cancer. He was 46. The pain has been unbearable. It will never leave. But I am starting to move forward. At last.

Grief: Noun. Intense sorrow, especially caused by someone’s death.

That is the sanitised and unemotional dictionary definition of grief.

Today tens of thousands of South Australians are silently grappling with the numbing pain of grief. For those people, I offer hope. Peace can and will replace turmoil and loss.

It’s hard to assess how many people are battling grief because it can’t be detected with an X-ray, an MRI or a blood test. There is no rash, swelling or sore throat.

Grief is insidious, intangible and invisible. It is as heartless and unrelenting as it is painful. It has no compassion. It does not sleep. It shares a tryst with Satan.

At night grief holds the picture cards in a cruel poker game with sleep. During the day people in grief drag around weary bodies in leaden shoes. There is no respite.

To tell people to “snap out of it” is a tactless misunderstanding.

It’s a year this week since my son, David, aged 46, died after a long, brave and painful battle with pancreatic cancer. Those nearest to David – including me – experienced excruciating grief. The impact of his death was crushing. Profoundly sad.

But to those who have recently suffered the dreadful loss of a loved one, to those battling illness or injury, those nursing someone who is terminally ill or coping with a broken relationship, there is eventually release.

I understand the terrible place these people are in, the feeling of helplessness and despair as they dance with Satan. Yet, somehow the torment, the torture, the depression, the gnawing ache of loss, slowly dissipates.

Grief will never quite leave you. It burrows deep. But you can move forward.

I see my new life, life after David, as a decorated sponge cake with one wedge cut from it. It remains beautiful but it is not quite complete. There’s a gap.

SA journalist Rex Jory with son David.

Using a detailed diary I kept during David’s illness, I wrote about his 18-month battle with cancer in this magazine a few weeks after he died. That article reveals the depth of despair – of grief – I suffered

The impact on David’s wife, Rebecca, his daughter, Georgia, just nine years old, his mother, Margaret, his sister, Kathryn and my partner Liz and me was all-consuming. But as David was an inspiration in his fight, his death has shown us all that, in time, grief retreats. It leaves its scars, but it can be tamed.

Here are a few reminders of my torment taken from my personal diary.

“At one point I broke down in David’s arms and said: ‘I would give anything to be able to swap places with you in that bed’.”

“I had a cry with David. God, I’m scared … how sad, how terribly sad when a son has to comfort his father.”

“I collapsed. Broke down in helpless tears. Screamed hysterically about how scared I was. I was sure that David was going to die. I said something like: ‘I know he is going to die. A father knows these things. I could see it in his eyes’.”

And later: “I came good and it was somehow cleansing I had confronted things for the first time. Yet in another way the grief seemed to change. It became a constant, persistent, nagging pain. A lump in my guts. Words can’t capture it.”

When doctors told David he had pancreatic cancer and was not likely to live, I wrote: “There were no tears. We all knew. I told David I saw it in his eyes weeks ago. He knew then that he had cancer and that he was going to die.”

David and Rex Jory at Hamilton Island in 1990.

I was with David when he saw his oncologist for the first time. I wrote: “The young specialist shuffled papers, X-rays and words until David said: ‘Am I f--ked?’ The specialist said: ‘Yes. You’re f--ked.’

“Never heard words quite like it. My son was going to die. David sat shaking his head. What was he thinking? I was devastated. Disbelief. A true horror show.”

As the weeks dragged I wrote: “I’m tired all the time. Everything is an effort. Depression, I guess.”

“While I have plenty of support, I am solo in my own feelings and the way I am dealing with things. I think how it was, how David was a little boy, and now. How sad. How unfair.”

“(David’s death) is now inconveniently unavoidable, a constant, minute by minute thought that rarely goes away.”

“We caught the tram from Glenelg to the city: I wrote: ‘I completely broke down on the tram, a meltdown, sobbing and tears flowing. I was inconsolable’.”

“David and I had an intense and intimate hour together this morning. Tears and great sadness. We have no fences to mend. I told him gently he didn’t need to keep fighting … permission to go, if you like. I can’t imagine it will get any harder, any sadder, but I know it will.”

Those few quotes give you a glimpse of my grief. It was almost an out of body experience. Those currently suffering grief may be able to identify with those feelings. I tried to bluff friends that I was managing, that I was tough, but I realise now that if I fooled myself, I didn’t fool them.

It took me three months before I realised I had to move forward, that David would want me to get on with my life. So I decided to get fit – I had let myself go – and lose weight. We would accept every social invitation and brighten up our house.

It worked. I lost 12kg. Slowly grief morphed into memories. I’ve scrapped the sedatives the doctor prescribed and I have rebounded – perhaps not quite to where I was before David’s illness but somewhere near.

I have tamed the grief, although, of course, we all miss David terribly. There is a slice missing from the cake. But it’s still a splendid cake.

David and Rex Jory at Hamilton Island in 1990.