Extract from new book My Way, by AFLW star Moana Hope

COLLINGWOOD AFLW player Moana Hope is as resilient as they come. But in this edited extract from her new book My Way, she relives the heartbreak of losing her best friend — her dad.

AFLW footballer Moana Hope. Picture: Tony Gough

IT was when I was 11 years old that my dad was diagnosed with leukaemia. Initially, I had no real idea about how serious his illness was. When I was told that he had cancer, I was like, whatever. I had no idea what cancer was. I thought he just had something like the flu.

I remember people at school saying that cancer was really bad. But I thought it was impossible that a disease could kill someone as strong as my dad [Gary]. He was a massive man. I think he weighed about 140kg, but he wasn’t fat. He was quite tall and was built like a big rugby player. When I looked at him, I couldn’t see how an illness could possibly be stronger than him.

But over the course of two years Dad’s health deteriorated to the point where he was unable to drive, then unable to even walk, and it was then that the extent of how sick he was dawned on me. Eventually, it got to the point where Dad was unable to cope with all the noise and chaos at home. [Hope is one of 14 children.] The doctors were adamant that being around his family was proving stressful for Dad.

As he wasn’t one to complain, Mum [Rosemary] took it upon herself to rent a small unit for him. I couldn’t bear being away from Dad at night, so I decided that I was going to
be his carer. I didn’t ask Mum whether I could do it, I just told her I was going to look after him. I had to be there for him, and that was that.

Moana Hope's family and the station wagon that ferried them around.

I ended up caring for Dad for more than two years. I made all his food and I took care of all the medical things that I could handle. Looking back now, I’m not really sure how I managed to look after him as well as I did, because he needed a lot of help.

As his illness progressed, he started coughing up a lot of blood. He would cough into a spit bag and I would change the bag every couple of hours. I was by his side right through the night. In fact, I don’t think I ever had a full night’s sleep during those years.

Mum was now our sole income earner. Without her bringing in money, we wouldn’t have been able to pay our bills or the two rents. We would have been homeless. If Mum had a weekday off or did a nightshift, then she looked after Dad during the day while I went to school.

In his last year or so, Dad was often admitted to hospital. He sometimes developed pneumonia and he needed blood transfusions. He always went to St Vincent’s Hospital in Fitzroy and I always went with him. We travelled there by taxi until Dad was so sick that we had to go by ambulance. I never left his side. If he had to stay overnight, I pushed two chairs together and slept beside him.

Towards the end of his life, Dad became very fragile. On one occasion he rolled over in bed and one of his ribs fractured. It was heartbreaking to see him reduced from such a big, strong man to a pile of skin and splintering bones. I think he ended up weighing just 38kg.

When Dad got to the point where he knew he was going to die, he moved back into our family home, and I did too. Dad wanted to be surrounded by his family in his last few days, but he went through a really emotional period once we moved back home.

I remember I was watching television in the lounge room with my brother Barney one evening and I could hear Mum saying to Dad, “Don’t be an idiot. Don’t say things like that.” The thing was that Dad had started pouring out all of his life’s regrets. Over and over again, he kept telling Mum he had so many regrets about his life. He kept saying he regretted working in a job that meant he didn’t spend enough time with his kids. And he was crying a lot.

Collingwood’s Moana Hope. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

That was a massive shock for me. I don’t think I had ever seen him cry before then.

Dad knew he was about to die, and he was just going through that phase of full-blown regret. He was thinking, F---, why didn’t I just do things that I wanted to do? Why did I go waste all that time working night shifts? So many things must have been going through his head.

I remember he called one of my older siblings into his bedroom and started apologising
to them. He couldn’t stop saying, “I’m sorry.”

Mum kept telling him to stop saying these things, to stop feeling like he needed to apologise to everyone. But Dad just couldn’t help it. He couldn’t find any inner peace.

I had no idea what was going on. Deep down, I still didn’t believe he was going to die.

It was 2002, I was 14 and enrolled in Box Forest Secondary College. I was doing what was known as the KODE (Koorie Open Door Education) program, which meant I was in classes with kids — most of them indigenous — who needed extra help with their reading and writing, which I did too.

Even though I was missing a lot of school days because of Dad’s illness, the teachers wanted me to take part in the work experience program. Dad thought it would be good for me too. He wanted me to be someone who grew up and made a contribution to society, not someone who turned into a dole bludger.

So my school arranged for me to spend a week at the local Bi-Lo supermarket. It was the one where we did most of our shopping and where two of my sisters already worked. But
I didn’t want to go. The day before I was due to start, Dad called me over and quietly said, “Hey, you have to go to work experience. Your school has set it up, so you have to go.”

“F--- that, I’m not going,” I replied. “I have to be here with you.”

But Dad was adamant. “You have to go.”

Moana Hope with her dad Gary at home in Glenroy in 1989.

The next day I went down to Bi-Lo and followed my sisters around. The following morning I got up and went to see Dad. He looked unbelievably weak, and it was soon decided that he would need to be admitted to hospital.

“I’m coming with you,” I said. He then plucked up the strength to say, “No. You have
to go to work experience. You’re not coming.”

I started crying and lost it.

At 11am, as I wandered around the supermarket, one of the staff members came up to me and said, “Your mum has just rung. You have to go home.”

I thought that Mum must have organised for us to go and see Dad at the hospital.

When I got home, she asked us to sit down in the lounge room. All of my brothers and sisters were there.

“Your father might pass away soon,” she said. It was like a hit across the head and I think I started going into shock.

I felt so numb. Then the phone rang and Mum answered it. I’ll never forget seeing her drop to her knees, like she was sort of fainting. She started crying hysterically. One of my brothers could tell that I wasn’t really registering what was going on.

“Dad has died,” he said.

Those words struck me hard. I had been by his side day after day and now he had passed away while I was at a stupid supermarket doing work experience.

I felt so bitter. My best friend, my only really close friend, was gone and I had not been there at the end.

To this day, the thought of Dad dying in that hospital without his family makes me cry. It breaks my heart.

Moana Hope on the footy field. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

But it was probably a very selfless act for Dad to push me away that day. He knew how close he was to dying and for a young kid like me to watch a parent die would be extremely traumatic — probably more traumatic than not being there. So in some ways I’m grateful for what he did.

I found it impossible to process the idea that Dad was gone forever. I remember family friends saying to me, “I’m so sorry to hear about your Dad,” but I sort of acted like I didn’t know what they were talking about. On one level, it just didn’t feel real.

A carload of my teammates from the Hadfield footy club came over to see me, which was really sweet. One suggested, “Let’s go and play basketball to take your mind off things.”

I was rapt to get the chance to go out and play some sport. It hadn’t fully registered the gravity of what had happened.

Even after being given the chance to go to the funeral home and view his body in the casket, I still couldn’t really grasp the reality.

I had seen him lying there, clearly lifeless, but I couldn’t stop believing that somehow
it was just a bad dream.

I didn’t really take it in at the time, but a freakish thing happened at Dad’s funeral.
He had chosen the song Better Man, by Robbie Williams, for the service. But when the time came for the song to be played, the next track, which was My Way, came on instead.

I love to think that Dad changed his mind up in heaven and reached down into the church and changed the track, because My Way was so much more appropriate. Dad used to do everything his way; it was his way or the highway. Nobody ever overruled him.

Moana Hope as a young footy-mad girl.

Mum struggled to come to terms with her loss for a long time after Dad died. She cried and cried and cried.

I think she made matters worse by playing the CD made for the funeral over and over again. The songs Better Man and My Way seemed to make her more emotional but
she kept pressing repeat and listening to them again and again. Some days Mum struggled to even get out of bed.

Watching Mum in that state, with tears continually pouring down her cheeks, was unbelievably tough. She was, and is, such an amazingly strong woman, but I think she felt scared to be on her own with so many kids to support. None of us knew what to do to help her.

It wasn’t until many years later that the loss of my dad properly sank in. I eventually went back to school fulltime. Missing so much schooling had put me well behind my classmates, and I never caught up. But I didn’t care then and I don’t care now.

I am proud to have lived my life the way I want to live it. I have never forgotten Dad having all those regrets on his deathbed.

I don’t want to get to the end of my life and wish that I’d done things differently. I cared
for Dad because I loved him.

Our life was not about money or having a big house or a big TV or the latest mobile phone. We didn’t have any of that, but we had the most priceless thing in the world, and that’s love.
I loved my dad and that’s why I made so many sacrifices for him. I wouldn’t change that aspect of my life for anything.

The only thing I would change, if I could, is to be by Dad’s side on the day he died.

My Way by Moana Hope.

SIGNED BOOK OFFER

Buy My Way by Moana Hope, for $32.99 including delivery and receive a signed copy. Order online now at heraldsun.com.au/shop, or call 1300 306 107 from 10am Monday.

My Way , by Moana Hope (MUP, RRP $33, ebook $15), is out this week.
WWW.MUP.COM.AU/ITEMS/202242