I have no more tears: 20 years after Bali, a mother still mourns for her son

Josh Deegan was 22 and in the prime of his life when he died in the 2002 Bali bombings. His mother Angela Vaskin says the pain of her loss ‘never really gets better’.

It’s a haunting – but beautiful – photograph.

Two young people in the prime of their lives, embracing, the start of a holiday romance that must have felt like it held so much potential.

Very soon after this picture was taken both Josh Deegan, 22, and Angela Golotta, the 19-year-old Adelaide girl he’d met just that night in Kuta’s Sari Club, would be dead.

The image, recovered from a disposable camera that was found in the wreckage and rubble left behind after Bali bombings claimed 202 innocent lives, is a tough one for Josh’s mother Angela Vaskin to look at.

The photo of Josh Deegan and Angela Golotta taken 10 minutes before the bombings which killed them both.

But Ms Vaskin, who says she still grieves every day for the boy she lost in the senseless act of violence, also takes solace in the fact that the picture is proof that Josh was doing what Josh did best on the night that he died – living life to its full extent.

STILL GRIEVING

“I guess I’m still coping, still going through the grieving process,” Ms Vaskin says over a cup of coffee at the kitchen table of her Adelaide home.

“I don’t think I’ve ever really digested it. It probably sounds weird for me to say that, but I honestly don’t think I have. Sometimes it feels like it was yesterday, and sometimes it feels like it was 100 years ago. It’s a day-by-day thing, and still very raw for me.”

LISTEN: GUARDIANS OF THE DEAD - EPISODE 2: BALI BOMBINGS

Unlike Josh’s dad, former magistrate Brian Deegan, who very much went on the front foot following Josh’s death, criticising the Howard Government’s foreign policy and Australia’s involvement in the War on Terror, Ms Vaskin kept a low profile.

She has never spoken at length to the media, and prefers a more quiet form of grieving.

“It’s hard to put into words – when you’ve lost one of the most important people in your life, someone you loved and adored, it just never really gets better,” she says.

‘I LOVE YOU ... SEE YOU WHEN YOU GET BACK’

On the eve of Josh’s end of season footy trip to Bali in October, 2002, Ms Vaskin helped her son pack his bags.

She says she told him not to take too many clothes – there wasn’t much point when you could buy a T-shirt from the market for $2 – and slipped him $100 to buy a custom leather jacket.

The talented SANFL footballer was excited to be travelling to the party hot spot with Sturt – the team he loved – and the players he was so close to.

Angela Vaskin holding a painting of Josh painted by Artist Kim Polomka. Picture: Kelly Barnes

A popular young man with a wide circle of friends, he spent his last night in Australia with his mates at The Ed hotel.

“He had a few beers and came home quite late,” Ms Vaskin recalls.

“I just said to him, ‘look, have the best time, stay safe and enjoy yourself’.”

The next morning Ms Vaskin went to work, and while there used her new mobile phone to leave Josh a voice message for him to listen to when he touched down.

“I just left a message for him saying, ‘I love you, and I’ll see you when you get back’.”

PROCESSING A TRAGEDY

In the days following the terror attack Ms Vaskin avoided media reports and refused to give up on the idea that Josh might have somehow escaped the blast.

“Two days after it had happened there were reports that Josh had been seen with a girl, and that they might have left the Sari Club and gone somewhere else,” she says.

“So there was this tiny glimmer, this tiny possibility.”

That flicker of hope was extinguished when Josh’s body was eventually identified in the morgue.

Even then, Ms Vaskin says, there was no real acceptance.

“I was taking a lot of tablets, just to sleep and stop losing my mind,” she says.

Three months after Josh’s death, Ms Vaskin joined many other grieving parents, friends and family members for a healing ceremony in Bali. It was, she says, far too soon.

“I should never have done that because it put me in a worse place,” Ms Vaskin admits.

“I just couldn’t process it. It was too huge. And far too soon.”

Angela Vaskin (right), with Josh's brother Nick and Lisa Gray, during a memorial service for Bali bombing victims in Adelaide.

A COMPETITIVE SOUL

Lee Kelly is now the director of the Josh Deegan Foundation, but twenty years ago he was just Josh’s mate.

The pair, who were a year apart at school, became close while working together at the Torrens Arms Hotel. That friendship was forged in fire whenever the pair took to the golf course.

“He was at uni and had a lot of spare time, so we started playing golf together at Belair Golf Course,” Mr Kelly says.

“He was very competitive. We’d compete against each other, but if I started winning too much he’d design a game where we could win together and get an outcome. There’s definitely a few clubs up in the trees around the tenth hole I reckon.”

But Josh’s competitive nature was always left on the golf course, or wherever else he was playing sport. In day-to-day life, Mr Kelly says Josh was “a guy who had no enemies”.

“He never complained about anyone, never had anything bad to say about anyone,” he says.

When reports started filtering through to Australia that there had been a huge explosion in Kuta, Mr Kelly says that he – like most Australians at the time – didn’t really know what to think.

There were no smartphones in 2002, and news reports out of the Indonesian island were patchy at first.

“I was going to work in the morning,” Mr Kelly says.

“We put it on the TV at the Torrens Arms … a bunch of Josh’s mates came to the pub to try to get their head around it, then we went up to (Josh’s father) Brian’s place.

“There was an excruciatingly long period of time when we just didn’t know what had happened. Then we were getting information that wasn’t necessarily correct, so that was hard.”

IN MEMORY OF JOSH

Bali bombing victim Josh Deegan.

Mr Kelly admits that he went through “a pretty rough time of not accepting what happened”.

After that, his thoughts turned to ways of honouring his mate’s legacy and making sure something good came out of the tragedy.

Naturally enough, he settled on golf.

“The first golf day was in February 2003,” Mr Kelly says.

“We had 100 odd people up there wanting to support it. That gained some traction, and then we started raising money which went to the Royal Adelaide Hospital’s Burns Unit, because they were so heavily involved (in the aftermath of the bombing).

“In the early years that money was being used to buy equipment they couldn’t buy themselves. Then in 2015, they developed the Burns Link program and needed funding for that.”

Now the annual golf day, which started at Belair but is now held in Stirling, is a major supporter of the program that sees nurses and health professionals in regional areas around the country receiving specialised training to help treat burn victims.

I HAVE NO MORE TEARS

Ms Vaskin says she doesn’t think she’ll ever get over the death of Josh.

She says she relies on the support of her husband Pete (“my rock through this terrible time”), her sister Martha and Pete’s daughter Kristie to get her through the bad days.

“I cried every day for the first year, and now I have no more tears,” she says.

“But I am blessed to have my other son Nick in my life. He is a bit damaged (by it), but he strives to do his absolute best. We are all a bit broken. He was my firstborn and the love of my life.”

For information on the Josh Deegan Foundation and details on the memorial golf day go to facebook.com/JoshDeeganFoundation