10

DAD

You know how they say people take after one or the other of their parents? As I’ve said, on paper I definitely take after my dad.

Though we had a pretty strict upbringing with Dad, we were never in any doubt about how much he loved us. And I think since the fire, he has become a lot softer with me. I’m kind of annoyed by that – after all, he raised me to be tough, to always strive for a higher standard, to never be satisfied with ‘good enough’. I’ve called him out on it a few times, and he reckons it’s not because of my accident but because he’s getting too old to fight.

I’m blessed to have such loving and supportive parents. And I’m acutely conscious of all the sacrifices that both of them have made for me and my brothers. Dad and I don’t talk about the fire and its aftermath, but I know, like Mum, he was profoundly affected by it. This is his story.

Michael Pitt

As a parent, one of the great things you can hope for in your children is that they have an enthusiasm for life. You want them to have a bit of spunk, a bit of zest. And from the day she was born, Turia had those in spades.

I remember holding her as a newborn. She was so beautiful, but even then you could sense that she was bursting to get on with life. And it didn’t take long for her headstrong, stubborn side to come out. Even as a three-year-old, she and I had some whopper arguments. Celestine was working at a bank in Maroubra, Genji was at kindy and I was working from home. So that meant it was just the two of us through the day. I was never in any doubt about what Turia wanted at any given moment of the day. It was pretty clear from a young age that she was both smart and very, very determined.

I mean, she did a double degree at uni because it wasn’t enough to do just one. Plus she figured she might as well get two knocked over at the same time. That’s Turia: she is driven.

As sister and brother, Turia and Genji were always competing with one another. They still are to this day. When they see each other, they’ll always compare abs and biceps. She was keen on surfing as a young kid and a really good runner. As daughters go, I knew I was really lucky to have one as accomplished as Turia.

 

The day of her accident? I remember it like it was yesterday. It’s not an experience I would want any parent to have to go through.

I had just returned home from a holiday sailing in Greece. I was staying in Sydney and had switched my phone off overnight. When I turned it on in the morning there were loads of voicemail notifications, and a text from Genji. ‘Turia has been in a terrible accident,’ it read. ‘Burns to 60 per cent of her body. May not live. Call me.’

I remember sitting there looking at those words. And even as I read them – ‘May not live’ – I remember thinking it must be some kind of sick joke. I called Genji straightaway and said, ‘Is this for real?’

I went to the airport and jumped straight on a plane for Darwin.

That flight was the longest and most painful few hours of my life. I just sat there staring out the window, thinking about Turia: playing over and over in my mind all of the happy memories of her growing up; what she looked like, what she smelled like, what she was like running around as a little kid. It was as though I was willing her back to the land of the living by dredging up and cementing in my memory all the happy, significant moments in Turia’s life. Because at that point, her life was on a knife edge. So I sat on that plane for what seemed like an eternity wondering if I was going to see my daughter again or if I was going to bring her home in a box.

By the time the plane landed, I was numb. All I wanted to do was speak to the doctors and see whether my little girl was going to live.

I am not one of those get-down-on-my-knees-and-pray type of people. I am an atheist. I didn’t see this as God’s work or any kind of fate. I just knew it was a random accident: just the chaotic nature of the universe. I didn’t feel any anger at all.

 

Genji and Gary Hoskin met me at the airport and the three of us drove straight to the hospital. Having someone like Gary there in a situation like that was a lifeline – he is such a calm, considered person. He told me later that he was only barely keeping his shit together, but in the moment he was like a rock.

The head surgeon in Darwin was remarkable. She told it to us straight: she’d had to pretty much slice Turia from head to toe. I think they call it an escharotomy – where they cut through your skin to relieve the swelling. I went into the intensive care unit and saw my little girl lying there. She was so still. She was wrapped completely in bandages with only her face exposed. It was so swollen I barely recognised her. All I could think to do was talk to her. She was unconscious, but I was sure she could hear me (turns out I was wrong on that).

‘Darling, it’s Dad. I am here. Mum is here, Michael is here, Genji and Gary are here. We all love you and are here for you.’ I think that became my mantra, repeated to her over and over again for the next few days.

The doctors operated on her there and then, and then the CareFlight people came to pick her up to transfer her to Sydney. They were so professional. Just awesome. Your kid is potentially dying before your eyes and you’re standing there feeling helpless and these guys fly in like supermen. Just incredible.

None of us were able to fly with Turia, so we all jumped on whatever flights we could get and followed her down to Sydney. At that point it was all about life and death. There was no discussion about how the recovery was going to go or the scope of what would be in front of her physically and mentally. It was just a question about whether she would live.

 

At Concord Hospital, over the next few days, her heart stopped a couple of times and she had to be reanimated. Can you imagine that? Your daughter dying on the hospital bed in front of you on three or four occasions and them having to drag her back to life? The doctors become demi-gods. You watch them work and listen to them as they calmly explain everything they are doing, everything they are going to do – and you just come away with the most enormous respect for them. She was being looked after by the two Peters – Peter Haertsch and Peter Maitz. Both of them were so professional. The level of intelligence, skill and education these guys have is just mind-boggling. You put the life of your daughter in their hands and it’s a comfort. These are the guys who are going to patch her up and make everything okay. And they never tried to sugar-coat anything. She’s going to look different, they told us. She’s going to have skin transplants. She could be in hospital for twelve months. And it was information that they drip-fed to us, telling us what we needed to know as we needed to know it.

Once Turia survived the first two weeks, I knew she was going to be okay. I knew she was going to make a miraculous recovery. As I’ve said, she had always been so determined as a little kid. If she set her mind to doing something, she would sit there and sit there and practise it until she got it right. Emotionally, too, she was tough. I suppose I tried to raise all my kids to be emotionally self-sufficient. And I knew by then that in life you cannot rely on other people, or blame them for things that don’t go your way. You are ultimately responsible for your own life.

 

For the next six months Turia was in hospital. I was working in Ulladulla and had my two youngest sons with me a lot of the time. Celestine had essentially moved up to Sydney to dedicate herself to taking care of Turia. And hats off to her. She is a remarkable woman: so caring, so full of warmth and affection. She poured herself into Turia’s recovery, and I can say with certainty that Turia would not have recovered as quickly or as comprehensively as she did if it hadn’t been for Celestine.

I would drive back and forth on weekends. At first, it looked as though the recovery was going to be long, slow and painful. But I knew how determined Turia was, and I knew that medical barriers were being broken all the time, and that my daughter would take those boundaries to the limit. She was deeply scarred, but gradually the old her started to shine through.

I had done a lot of online research and discovered burns victims who suffered worse injuries than Turia. People whose limbs had fused, for example. And we chose to focus on the positives. As bad as it was – and it was bad – there were people in worse situations.

I’ve always been into physical fitness, so whenever I spent time with Turia in hospital, I would try to take her through some stretching, work on the physio aspects of her recovery and rehab. I’m not sure she appreciated it all that much. There were a few choice words that seemed to be used quite a lot whenever we were going through her exercises. But, to her credit, and for all the swearing and cursing – she did them.

Turia and I have always had one of those father–daughter relationships where we talk a lot. Not necessarily about feelings or anything – but always about science and the possibilities of the future. So we spent a lot of time discussing science and technology, boring everyone else to death.

They moved her to a rehab facility but she hated it there and quickly decided to come home. When she finally got back to Ulladulla, I made it my job to go with her to the gym to do her exercises. I can’t speak highly enough about the community in Ulladulla. They really rallied behind her. So many people went out of their way to help. Sometimes you hear people bashing Australia – but I just think it’s the greatest country on earth. We are so incredibly lucky to be born here – our health system is second to none. And then to have had this amazing community just wrap itself around us.

Moving in with Michael’s parents, Gary and Julie, was probably the best thing that could have happened to Turia at that stage. What can you say about people like Gary and Julie? She was their son’s girlfriend – not even a member of their immediate family – and she was utterly broken, requiring round-the-clock care. And they just took her in without a second’s hesitation. I will be forever indebted to them for that. They are the most humble, kind-hearted people. And their home was exactly the nurturing environment Turia needed at that point. Out the back is this tranquil little garden and, bit by bit, the little circle of what she was able to do got wider and wider.

Then, of course, there is Michael. He has been her rock. He’s got very broad and strong shoulders. Which is not to say he hasn’t suffered. I have seen the pain in his face. Imagine what he has been through. The love of his life has nearly been torn from him and then he has to nurse an invalid. And he would never claim it – he would never want accolades for what he has done. How important for Turia to wake up from that coma and see her boyfriend by her side, to spend eighteen months learning to walk, eat and speak again – and her boyfriend never left her side. And let’s be honest: Turia wasn’t always in the best of moods while this was going on. How could she have been? She was angry and frustrated a lot of the time. It’s not easy to be bright and chirpy when you struggle to brush your own hair or clean your own teeth. And for all of this to be dumped on them just as their relationship should be blossoming and in its prime. It tells you everything you need to know about Michael.

Honestly, between Michael and Celestine, they took the whole load. The rest of us were there for distraction, entertainment and support. But it was all on them. I’ll be forever thankful to both of them for that.

I suppose the thing that people don’t often stop to think about is the toll that this has taken on both of them. It has hurt Celestine deeply to have to go through all of that pain. When someone you love and would give your life for has been hurt like that, it marks you. It leaves scars. And she would never make a big deal about that, because that’s the kind of woman – the kind of mum – that she is. But I know it’s been a tough journey for her.

Michael, too. He doesn’t say all that much, and isn’t one for big displays of emotion – but I know there have been moments for him when it has all been too much. How many young men, presented with that set of circumstances, would have stepped up in the way that he did? He is remarkable.

 

Do I look at my daughter now and feel terrible for her? Not at all. If she refused to leave the house and was completely broken, I would feel terrible for Turia. But the fact that I look at her now and see this incredibly strong woman forging this amazing path in the world, it just blows my mind. It’s almost as if she went into those bandages and came out a butterfly – completely transformed and ready to fly. She is like one of those Marvel superheroes. They are near death then dropped into some radioactive vat, only to emerge with super-powers. Would this enormous strength of character ever have been realised if this hadn’t happened to her? If she had never been caught in that fire?

Obviously, she closes the door from time to time and closes in on herself. But she is out there inspiring people in a really big way. Was there ever a doubt it would all turn out like this? I suppose she had to decide when she was lying in that hospital bed whether she was going to let it defeat her or whether she was going to rise like a phoenix. Was she going to shrink and shrivel or persevere and put herself out there by going on TV in a mask, then take it off, pose for the cover of the Women’s Weekly, put herself through some extreme training to do things like Ironman?

I would love to say that I always knew she had it in her – but I didn’t. I am so glad she did. A mate of mine said to me recently, ‘Mick – you know, she is really special. Not just for today. But in this century in Australia today. She is right up there.’

I see her on magazine covers or on the TV, I watch her give her speeches to rooms full of a thousand people and see the effect she has on them, and I just want to shout from the rooftops, That’s my girl!

 

Of course, as her dad, I’m quite looking forward to the day she and Michael produce a couple of grandkids. She keeps saying it’s her next big project, but then things like Ironman in Hawaii come along. Then she talks about wanting to climb Everest. And I am always like, ‘Do you think that’s such a good idea?’

And she’ll look at me and say, ‘Seriously, Dad. What’s the worst that can happen?’

I was twenty-six when she was born. Young. Being a parent is easily the most important work you will do as a human, but you get next to no training for it. I know she will make a great mum – just like her own mum is. She tries to make out that she will be really strict, but I doubt it. If there’s a god, she will have a daughter just as headstrong as she is and she’ll start to appreciate what her mother and I went through.

It’s funny, because people make a big deal about the fact that she was so attractive before the fire and how she had done some work as a model and how that must make it doubly hard for her to accept what has happened. But I think they miss the point completely.

Men wear their scars as badges of honour: it’s a sign of a life well lived – noses broken at footy, scars from smashing into a reef while surfing. Women spend so much time and money on their appearance. And Turia does as well. She can spend hours on her hair or applying eyeliner. And she still has bad-hair days.

I guess on some level she has made the decision within herself that she is as beautiful now as she ever was, and while people may not see it at first glance, they won’t fail to see it if they spend any kind of time with her. And that’s true.

As far as I am concerned, she is at least as beautiful now as she used to be – maybe more so because of the amazing person she has become. Besides, she is looking better with every year that passes, such is the skill of the surgeons who work on her. And when all is said and done, she could so easily have been dead. Because that’s the alternative, really. I mean, if it really bothered her – she could take her life at any time. If her life wasn’t worth living, she could end it all tomorrow. But as I have said to her on one or two occasions when she’s been down: if you were dead, you wouldn’t be doing all these remarkable things. You live, and live scarred – but what a remarkable life you have ahead of you.

Is it a happy ending for her? I think it absolutely is. But the story is far from over. I really hope to be talking about her again in ten years’ time, looking back on a decade of remarkable achievements, because that’s what she has ahead of her.

 

Not one of us on this earth can turn back time. If I could, I would love to reset the clock. Of course I wish it had never happened. Seeing the physical and mental pain she went through for the amount of time she went through it – I wouldn’t wish that journey on anyone. But given this is the hand she has been dealt, and given what she has done with it, it just makes me burst with pride.

She has been fast-tracked to a level of maturity that few of us will ever know. And in the process, she’s gained wisdom that few of us will ever have. She’s had to draw on resources that not many people know that they have and very few of us will ever have tested. Having said that, in some respects she’s still the six-year-old kid I remember. She has that child-like enthusiasm mixed with a profound wisdom.

Would I say she is thriving? Yeah – I think I would. She has embraced the challenge that is life and taken it on head-on. Around this time last year, she was out in big surf at the Bombie, near Mollymook. And it can get pretty rough out there. All the hardened old salts were out on their guns (big wave boards), and Turia was catching waves on her body-board; surfing these huge waves and getting a thrashing. But each time she got slammed, she just paddled back out to the line-up. And you know, every single one of those locals has come up and told me at some point what a legend my daughter is. And she is. She really is.