Anzac Day reflection for son born on day of father’s funeral

Pregnant war widow Beckie MacKinney-Clohesy’s waters broke on the day of her husband’s funeral. Thirteen years on, the son he never met keeps his legacy alive.

A pregnant Beckie MacKinney is comforted at the funeral of her husband Jared MacKinney, the 21st Australian soldier to die in Afghanistan. The couple’s daughter Annabell, in pink, is cuddled.

Jared ‘‘Crash’’ MacKinney’s mates in the 6th Battalion Royal Australian Regiment deployed to Afghanistan remember the lance corporal shouting at the top of his lungs: “I’m having a boy” after hearing his wife was pregnant with the son he longed for.

But MacKinney, then on his second tour of the war-torn country, never got to meet Noah, who was born just hours after his father’s funeral.

Now 12, Noah can only draw on the stories he hears of the ‘‘funny, humble, caring, larrikin’’ he calls Daddy Jared.

Beckie MacKinney-Clohesy’s waters broke at 5.45am the day of the funeral in September 2010, but she was determined to attend and give the fallen soldier the farewell he deserved.

“It wasn’t about me, it was about him, because he’s our hero but he’s also Australia’s hero. All that was going through my mind is ‘just squeeze your legs together and get through this’,” she said.

Lance Corporal Jared MacKinney, 28, was killed in action following an intense firefight with Taliban insurgents in the green zone of the Deh Rawud region of Uruzgan province in 2010.

By the time the full military service ended Mrs MacKinney-Clohesy’s contractions were just 110 seconds apart, and less than two hours after being rushed to hospital Noah Jared was born.

“It was such a bittersweet, surreal, heartbreaking, yet beautiful time,” Mrs MacKinney-Clohesy, now 38, said at her home on the Sunshine Coast.

Holding the baby boy they had longed for and knowing he would never meet his father, Mrs MacKinney-Clohesy described being hit with the sense of all the small moments missed.

“My sister cut the cord for me because Jared had asked her to do it if anything happened to him … it’s one of those little things that I guess we take for granted and as it was happening I ­remember feeling really grateful, but really sad.”

MacKinney was 28 when he was killed during an intense firefight with Taliban insurgents on August 24, 2010, in the battle of Derapet.

He and his wife had been high school sweethearts, married ­almost five years, and were looking forward to completing their family with a baby brother for two-year-old Annabell.

Anzac Day is an emotional time for the family. Noah said it made him feel sad, and he hoped it prompted people to reflect on “what soldiers have done” for the country.

“It just reminds me of Daddy Jared and that I’ve never seen him,” Noah said.

Mrs MacKinney-Clohesy felt “a little bit on edge” in the lead-up to the day, and said Annabell, now 16, had reached an age where she thought more about the loss.

Mrs MacKinney-Clohesy remarried in 2014, to Damien ­Clohesy, and they also have a seven-year-old son Nate.

Beckie MacKinney-Clohesy with her now 12-year-old son Noah, with the medals her late husband and Noah’s father wore on Anzac Days before his death.

The family will all wear MacKinney’s medals on Anzac Day, but Mrs MacKinney-­Clohesy said for them it was about remembering the wider community.

“We’re remembering Jared but we’re also remembering all of the other former soldiers as well because their lives are just as ­important as his,” she said.

Mrs MacKinney-Clohesy is an ambassador for Legacy Brisbane, and said the support service for veterans families had been crucial in getting her family through the tough times.

She said she could not have imagined 13 years ago that she would be today having found deep love and happiness again. “Jared and I had had long discussions about if something should happen, he would want me to move on, he wanted me to be happy. So I really feel that he would be really happy, because I am happy.”