From helping to establish one of the Coast’s top schools to inventing game-changing technology for farmers, Walter Abrahamson’s life has been remarkable.

But it is his attitude to his imminent death that is truly incredible.

Just weeks ago, Walter was diagnosed with a deadly glioblastoma brain tumour, the most aggressive type of cancer. Without treatment, the average life expectancy is three months … and Walter cannot be treated.

And the 79-year-old is not just at peace with his fate, but positively beaming about dying.

“I’m not afraid,” he says, holding the hand of Iona, his wife of 58 years. “In fact, I’m looking forward to it.”

It’s certainly not a death wish for this Gold Coast former farmer and inventor, but it is something beyond acceptance for Walter, who once upon a time mortgaged his own home to help develop Carrara’s Emmanuel College.

Still, it seems a cruel blow for a man who lost his 15-year-old son in a truck accident, whose wife was held at gunpoint by Australia’s most wanted man, who has already battled and beaten cancer once.

But for Walter, he sees it as a blessing.

“When my son David was killed, we never got to say goodbye,” says Walter from the communal sitting room of Hopewell Hospice in Arundel.

“He was riding his bike in Labrador and was hit by a truck, through no fault of his own. He was our beautiful boy and he was just gone.

“This cancer has given me the blessing of a goodbye. I have the opportunity to tell each person in my life what they have meant to me, to share one last time together and to reflect on the wonderful life I have had.

“And then, the ultimate reward. I will see David once more in the next life.

“I can’t wait.”

Almost 40 years after his son’s tragic death, Walter’s eyes still fill with tears as soon as he says David’s name.

And while he hopes to be with his son in the next life, he will also be with him in death – buried together at Southport Lawn Cemetery.

“I’ve been planning all of my final details, it’s just a shame I won’t be here to see them,” he smiles.

“I’m truly not scared of death, I believe that there is something greater on the other side. But I also know that nothing can be more terrifying than what life can throw at you.”

In fact, those words eerily echo the same sentiments of his beloved wife Iona as she stared down her own date with death decades ago.

In May 1989, with a gun pointed directly at her, Iona just stared calmly into the eyes of Australia’s most wanted man.

“Why aren’t you afraid?” asked John Porter, the fugitive at the centre of a national manhunt who had shot two policemen in NSW, killing one.

Held hostage in a Surfers Paradise unit for hours, Iona answered simply and truthfully.

“My 15-year-old son was killed seven years ago, and now I’m not afraid of anything.”

Showing and feeling no fear, Iona – who received her doctorate as a psychotherapist just last year at the age of 74 – managed to talk Porter into releasing her, where she immediately phoned Walter.

“That is a phone call I’ll never forget,” he says now.

“I knew from Iona’s voice that this was no joke. She was calling from a pay phone in Surfers and told me I could not call the police as she had made a promise that she would not.

“Well, I got off the phone and I thought, she made that promise to Porter – but I never did. So I picked up the phone again and called triple-0.”

And that was how Queensland Police managed to capture Australia’s most wanted man in 1989.

But even as he remembers the past, Walter is still focused on the future.

As brief as it may be, he is making every day count – much more so than most of us.

In fact, among his many visitors to his bedside, there has been one particularly important person to see him – an official from the patent office.

Along with his brother John, Walter has been an inventor all of his life – following in the footsteps of their father who built the first sugarcane harvester in 1948. Together, the brothers built the worldand#39s first 40-cow rotary non-stop dairy platform in 1971 … and they also invented a very close-knit family when the two brothers married two sisters.

But on the last day before his tumour took over his life, Walter completed his ‘next big thing’.

“It was incredible, it was like God knew I had to finish this invention. I had been working on it for so long and then, finally, it was finished. The next day, I was struck by vertigo … and then all of the medical diagnoses started.

“I can’t say what exactly my invention is because the patent office is reviewing it all, but it’s looking good and will be very beneficial to the Gold Coast.”

But his mechanical inventions, many created out of necessity while working the family’s dairy farm at Canungra, are not his only achievements.

Back in the early 1980s, the Abrahamsons were one of six families who mortgaged their own homes to secure the creation of Emmanuel College at Carrara.

From just 65 students in its foundation year in 1985, the school now has almost 2000 students.

And while Walter was a member of the school board for years, he was always in touch with what was happening on the ground – literally, as he used his farm tractor to mow the sports field in those early years.

“I’m hoping that on my way from the church service to burial, they can drive the hearse past Emmanuel, I’d love to say one last goodbye to the school I helped build,” he says.

While it might be an unusual request, it seems little is impossible for Walter.

Almost 20 years ago he was preparing for a shoulder reconstruction – due to stacking hay bales – when a routine blood test produced a shocking result.

“I was 60 at the time but the doctor said I was as fit as a 25 year old, so we were both incredibly shocked that I had bone marrow cancer,” he says.

“The oncologist told me that I was lucky to be so fit, and because I was he said he would treat me like a 40 year old, giving me stronger doses of chemo that would normally kill a 60 year old. So I decided to get fitter, so I could be luckier.

“I had to train a neighbour to milk my cows and then I was hospitalised for the chemo treatments. I would have four weeks in hospital, and two weeks at home and this went on for 14 months.

“During this slow recovery period, I would go for a walk around a particular corridor in Wesley Hospital, increasing my walk each day till I was walking for an hour, then 2 hours. After a week of increases, I found myself doing four one-hour walks at 4am, 10am, 4pm and 10pm.

“I was able to do 60 laps around this 100 metre corridor, each one hour of walking, doing a lap a minute, pushing my drip trolley. So I was now able to do 24 kilometres a day – I wanted to get fitter so I could get luckier.

“After 14 months of chemo and a stem cell transplant, I was pronounced in remission. My oncologist congratulated me, and said he wanted to see me every six months – because my remission was only expected to last for two years. “

Two decades later, that cancer still has not come back … but Walter simply can’t win against his new tumour.

While he has been warned that painful days may be coming, he is determined not to focus on that but on the joys he still has – his family and friends.

And to that end, Iona is focusing on her own faith to see her through what will be a difficult year.

Sadly, she knows what that is like.

“I’m trying very much to just be here with Walter and enjoy his sense of humour and our time together, we have been so lucky to have had so many years together,” she says.

“But it does take your mind back to those other hard times, like when we lost David.

“He was killed just days before Easter, on what is called Holy Thursday.

“Days later I remember standing in my laundry and picking up his clothes for the wash and just breaking down completely. That was it, that was all I had left of my boy – his empty clothes.

“But then I remembered the weeping women who found the clothes of Jesus in his empty tomb on Easter Sunday … and I realised it actually was Easter Sunday. In the darkest moment of my life, I was given hope beyond death.

“And that is what I’m counting on as I walk this final stage with Walter.”

Sitting beside her, Walter just smiles.

In the story of his life, this quiet death is his own happy ending.