Ondrej and Katarina immigrated to Sydney from Slovakia in Central Europe in 2008 – bright young University graduates searching for new adventures and careers in an exciting country on the other side of the world.

 

Katarina says they both loved the outdoors – hiking, camping and photography. Sydney and Australia offered them so much adventure. While completing their studies the couple explored many national parks and other wilderness areas together. “We would go out pretty much every weekend.”, Katarina remembers, “We would just pick a walk and head out with friends, a bushwalking club or on our own. It was our lifestyle.”

 

Ondrej was a software engineer who ended up working at a senior level in data science in the banking sector. Katarina works in the health sector with the NSW Government.

Katarina and Ondrej, soon after immigrating to Australia

 

As they built their life together in Sydney, they had two children – Martin in 2014 and Emma in 2017. Their life as a family continued to be spent often outdoors, taking the kids camping, bushwalking and much more. They had few extended family members in Australia, so their ‘Sydney family’ were mainly their bushwalking and adventure mates along with friends from the kids’ schools.

(left-right) Ondrej, Martin, Emma and Katarina

 

Their lives changed forever on one of these adventures. One weekend Ondrej went on a walk alone with a group of mates on an off-track walk in the Colo Valley, north-west of Sydney. Ondrej had planned and led walks often, as he was experienced in many outdoor skills and an accredited leader with a major Sydney-based bushwalking club.

 

A key part of this adventure was to swim and float on lilos down the beautiful Colo River. While floating down the river the group encountered an unexpected strong rapid, hidden from view by large rocks. Ondrej was suddenly sucked underwater by this strong rapid, his body wedged between rocks. Despite the experience and skills of his friends, they could not free Ondrej from the rapid and he soon drowned.

 

Katarina learnt of her husband’s death that evening. Katarina remembers she was enjoying a rare quiet night alone, watching a movie while her young children slept. When the police rang her doorbell late that night, she knew instinctively that something was terribly wrong.

 

The police officers gently explained that the bushwalking group had experienced a freak accident and that Ondrej had drowned quickly in that remote river. The emergency services were preparing to retrieve his body by helicopter in the morning.

 

Katarina’s strongest memories of that time were of the awful experiences having to tell their families the news of Ondrej’s death – her and Ondrej’s parents, extended families and of course their own children, Martin and Emma. Katarina remembers trying to keep it all simple, but factual for the children, explaining that their beloved dad or “Tata” had drowned on his bushwalk, while not overwhelming them with too much complex detail.

Emma, Martin and Ondrej, enjoying the Australian outdoors

 

Katarina’s other strongest memory from that time was of isolation. With most of their extended families living overseas and life in Sydney heavily restricted by COVID lockdown measures, Katarina and the children had a lot of time together to slowly process the reality of Ondrej’s death, without advice or input from many other people. In some ways this isolation was very hard, but Katarina remembers it did give them a sense of being close as a family and space to start finding a way to live without Ondrej.

 

Katarina was very relieved to learn about the National Centre for Childhood Grief (NCCG) and their support services for bereaved children. One of her close friends knew a woman who attended the NCCG with her daughter after her husband died from a heart attack. Katarina jumped at this chance to give her children specialist care:

“I just wanted to make sure the kids could get through this with as little ongoing trauma as possible, that they got every support available. And once I learned that this support (from the NCCG) was available and free I was really keen to give it a go.”

Ondrej, Emma and Martin loved climbing trees together

 

Emma, Martin and Katarina all received counselling at the NCCG. Katarina appreciated that the NCCG arranged sessions on Saturdays, which allowed her to juggle work, school and all the other demands of single parenting.

 

Each of her children had different needs and experiences after their dad’s death. Emma was four years old when Ondrej died, so did not have a lot of strong memories of her dad. Katarina loved, however, how her NCCG counsellor Lil helped Emma build her memories of her dad, using art and craft to express her emotions and document her memories. Katarina said:

“[at the NCCG] Emma learnt that even though her dad died, he still lives in her heart. And she learnt how to be open to sharing her memories even at school and with her friends. That has been big for her.”

 

Martin has a very different character. He is much quieter and finds it harder to talk much about his dad. “They were very close”, Katarina says. “They would play a lot of Lego, climb trees and go on bushwalks.” Counselling has helped him talk more easily about his dad and express the understandable anger and frustration he feels about his dads’ death. He built a connection with his counsellor, Wendy, so felt safer to share memories he had of Ondrej.

 

Katarina has developed new traditions to also help her children remember and celebrate their dad. Each year on the date of Ondrej’s death, the family drive up to the Colo Valley. They drive along the bumpy fire trail and lay a bunch of native Australian flowers on the side of the road. They spend time talking about Ondrej, continuing to reinforce their memories of their wonderful dad, the adventurer and active father who will stay in their hearts and stories forever.