For one moment, Trevor Hickman's voice catches and his composure collapses as he talks about his greatest fear – that his children, as they get older, won't remember their mother, his wife, Amy, who died of breast cancer last year.
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Audrey is eight and Elijah six and when he is is not absolutely consumed with the day-to-day realities of life after Amy – getting the kids to school, getting himself to work, doing craft projects here, organising tennis lessons there – Trevor sometimes does let the doubts and fears intrude.
He remembers recently meeting a teacher, a man, and discovering the man's mother had also died when he was just a boy, only four, and asking him, did he remember his mother? And the answer is what makes Trevor suddenly break down. Because the man's answer was "Yes". Yes, he did remember his mother. And among all the grief and readjustment and need to find happiness again that they have experienced in the last 12 months, that answer is a relief to a father trying to do the best for his children as they face life without their mother.
"People say kids are resilient and they are but they still need love and support. It's just making sure they're OK," he said.
Amy died on September 6 last year aged 44. She worked at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and was a dedicated mum, wife, daughter and friend. A pain in her right hip led to a scan and biopsy in late 2010 which revealed stage four cancer. It had spread from her right breast to her bones. As her condition worsened and treatment had little effect, Amy just wanted to see Audrey turn seven and Eli start kindergarten. She made Audrey's birthday, but was unable to see her little boy go off to big school, dying just eight days after she finally decided to cease all treatment, fighting so hard to the end but choosing to go her way, surrounded by her family at home in Curtin.
"We were always very honest with the children," Trevor said. "And, again, with advice, we always talked about cancer and we always talked about dying, rather than talking about Mummy becoming an angel or 'Mummy's going away'. And I think that really helped the kids understand a little bit."
They recently remembered Amy on the first anniversary of her death by going away to Rosedale on the South Coast where they had their last holiday together as a family, when mum was there too. It was indicative of the sensitive juggling act Trevor always has to perform – not ever forgetting Amy but also letting the children enjoy life.
"It's interesting because they knew the significance. And we left some flowers on the beach but equally you can't be too maudlin because they're kids and they want to play in the sea."
The family's story is contained in a new book called Take My Hand: Inspiring Stories from 10 Years of the McGrath Foundation, by Jo Wiles, which details just how much support they received from Canberra's McGrath breast care nurse, Kerryn Ernst. So much so that Trevor asked Kerryn to give a eulogy at Amy's funeral.
"In the middle of all this shitty luck, I thought about who had had the most impact on the last three and a bit years of Amy's life. Kerryn stood alone," he said, in the book. "The relationship Amy had with Kerryn was just incredible. She was a constant source of support and help."
Kerryn, who works from the Canberra Region Cancer Centre at the Canberra Hospital, funded by both the McGrath Foundation and ACT Health, holds a remarkable position, the only McGrath breast care nurse who works solely with women who have stage four or metastatic cancer. Put simply, she works with those women who won't recover from the disease. Most of her patients, heartbreakingly, die within three years. Every patient is important to her and Amy was especially so.
"She was just always positive. She would do anything. She was going to give it her absolute best," Kerryn said, of Amy's battle.
"I just don't know how she did it. And I think Trevor was remarkable as well. She was always at her treatments. The kids were always picked up. She had her moments but she was good fun. Matter-of-fact. That's not to say there weren't tears. I'm sure she and Trevor had some awful nights. But in the end, they knew it was all about family and appreciating them."
Kerryn is still a source of support for Trevor. She and her family went bike-riding with Trevor and the kids on the October long weekend. When the kids stop by to see Kerryn one day at the hospital, hot from playing tennis, she plies them with cold Milo and chocolates from the nurses' secret stash.
"I know that I make a difference," she said, of her job. "I just know I can make it easier for them."
For Trevor, he and the children have survived many "firsts" since Amy's death. The first Mother's Day, the first wedding anniversary, the first birthday, the first anniversary. He works full-time at Alzheimer's Australia while raising the children and it's a hard slog, not least because he is determined they continue to lead full lives.
"I think my focus in the last year has been to try to make their lives as unaltered as possible," he said.
"They still play tennis and they still go swimming because I'd hate them to feel like they've missed out on something and then look back and think, 'Well, I never did that because mum died when I was five'.
"And it means I have to work extra hard because I can't just go, 'Well I'm busy, brush you teeth and go to bed'."
And there been some difficult realisations in the 13 months since Amy's death.
"I think one of the strangest things I've found over the last year was how much Amy and I made decisions together," he said.
"I went to buy a new clothes basket and I was thinking, 'Do I get a black one or a red one?'. It's crap. It's insignificant. But ordinarily, we would have decided together, 'Oh, let's have red for a change'. And it was really grounding, I suppose, to think, 'Oh, my God, all those decisions are mine'. Even at things like a parent-teacher evening where, in the past, I would have been the junior partner and sat there while Amy did the talking, suddenly it's me and the teacher. And if suddenly something has to be done, I have to do it. That's been a really hard thing to adjust to."
Trevor is now trying to set up an informal network of fathers and husbands who have lost partners to breast cancer.
"I used to work for Lifeline and guys are shit at talking to each other but I'm trying to find men in a similar situation. I can't claim to be an expert or give words of wisdom but at least we all have a major, major thing in common," he said.
He also writes a blog where he details the kids' adventures and talks with both humour and honesty about their life and how he misses "Amy every day and in so many ways". He wrote in the blog a couple of months after Amy's death of being at the supermarket with the kids and asking them as they reached the cash register, 'We're doing OK aren't we?"
"Rightly or wrongly I've occasionally found myself 'checking in' with them to make sure they're OK and they're coping with our new 'normal'. Amy is ALWAYS in our life, we often talk about her and I feel her presence and power so often," he wrote.
"On this occasion Audrey was surprised that I had asked the question. The two of them were mucking around and hanging from the side of the trolley in typical fashion and she turned to me with a surprised expression and replied, 'Of course we are!'.
"Moments later when we reached the checkout both her and her brother obediently jumped down from the trolley and without prompting started unloading the trolley for me, scanning it and packing it into bags (they didn't have the ability to pay for the shopping but I'm sure they would have done!).
"They are such lovely children."
