The Dispatch
No XLVIII · Family · 7 min
The call that says Dad is dying
I was standing in the cereal aisle at the Coles in Mosman when my sister rang. It was 4:47pm on a Wednesday.
No XLVII · FAMILY
The six months of anticipatory grief
The diagnosis came back stage four on a Thursday and the oncologist said "we are talking months, not years" with the careful pacing of someone who has said it a thousand times. I was in the room with Mum and Dad.
28 Apr 2026 · 7 min
No XLVI · FAMILY
The funeral as a task, not an event
Three days after my old man died I was sitting at his kitchen table in the house I grew up in, with my sister opposite me, with a yellow legal pad between us, and we were trying to decide whether to play Tom Waits or The Pogues at the...
28 Apr 2026 · 8 min
No XLV · FAMILY
After the funeral, week three
On a Tuesday in week three I dropped my daughter at school, drove the eight minutes home, parked in the driveway, and then sat in the car for an hour and a half. I did not cry the whole time.
28 Apr 2026 · 7 min
No XLIV · FAMILY
The grief burst, twelve months later
On a Wednesday eleven months and three weeks after my old man died, I was in the queue at the Norton Street Bakery in Leichhardt buying a loaf of sourdough and a sausage roll for the kids, and I caught a smell I could not place for about...
28 Apr 2026 · 7 min
No XLIII · FAMILY
The estate as the eldest son
The phone call came at 6:47 on a Tuesday evening, and I was halfway through cooking sausages. Mum said the funeral director needed the death certificate by Friday.
28 Apr 2026 · 8 min
No XLII · FAMILY
The sibling fight after the funeral
The text arrived on a Sunday, six weeks and two days after Dad's funeral. It was from my sister, and it was 340 words long, and it began with the words "I have been thinking" which is the four-word warning anyone with siblings learns to...
28 Apr 2026 · 8 min
No XLI · FAMILY
The letter from Mum
The letter was in the second drawer down, under the costume jewellery, in an envelope with my name on it in her handwriting. I knew it was hers immediately. The way she did the R, with the loop coming back through itself.
28 Apr 2026 · 6 min
No XL · FAMILY
When the parent needs care, and doesn't know it
The first sign was the shirt. Same shirt, three Sundays in a row. Pale blue, frayed at the right cuff, a small mustard stain at the second button.
28 Apr 2026 · 8 min
No XXXIX · FAMILY
The conversation with Dad about the licence
I sat in the passenger seat of Dad's Camry last winter and watched him miss a stop sign. Not roll through it. Miss it.
28 Apr 2026 · 7 min
No XXXVIII · FAMILY
Aged care in Australia, the actual options
I was sitting at Mum's kitchen table at 9:14 on a Sunday morning, and the laminate had a crumb stuck to it from breakfast. She'd just made tea.
28 Apr 2026 · 9 min
No XXXVII · FAMILY
Being the favourite child and the burden
The phone rang at 11:43pm on a Wednesday, and I knew before I answered that it was Mum, because nobody else rings at 11:43pm. She wanted to know if I'd taken her glasses home by accident on Sunday. I hadn't.
28 Apr 2026 · 7 min
No XXXVI · FAMILY
Being the not-favourite child and the grief
I stood at the back of the chapel, in a navy suit that didn't fit any more, and watched my sister give the eulogy. She was crying in the right places. The congregation was crying with her. My eyes were dry.
28 Apr 2026 · 7 min
No XXXV · FAMILY
Dementia, day one
The neurologist's office had a print of a yacht on the wall, and I stared at it for the entire ten minutes it took her to say the word out loud. Mum was in the chair next to me, hands folded, watching the doctor's mouth.
28 Apr 2026 · 8 min
No XXXIV · FAMILY
The care team as a shadow family
I came in through Mum's back door at 10:17 on a Wednesday morning, and the kitchen smelled like toast. Suzanne, the morning carer, was loading the dishwasher and humming a song I didn't recognise.
28 Apr 2026 · 7 min
No XXXIII · FAMILY
When Mum is already gone
I was standing at the kitchen sink at Mum's house at 4:42 on a Tuesday afternoon, rinsing two cups, and the late autumn light was coming sideways through the window over the laundry tubs the way it always had.
28 Apr 2026 · 7 min
No XXXII · FAMILY
The grief that skips a year
I was driving home from the supermarket on a Wednesday at 6:18 in the evening, twenty-two months after Dad died, and a song came on the radio that I did not even particularly associate with him. It was something instrumental. A piano.
28 Apr 2026 · 7 min
No XXXI · FAMILY
When the parent is still difficult
I was sitting in Mum's lounge room on a Saturday at 11:30 in the morning, ten minutes into a visit, and she had already told me three things. That I'd put on weight.
28 Apr 2026 · 8 min
No XXX · FAMILY
Power of attorney with an ageing parent
I was sitting at Mum's dining table on a Saturday at 2:14 in the afternoon, with a manila folder I'd printed at home and a pen from the kitchen drawer, and Mum had her glasses pushed up on her head and her arms folded the way they had been...
28 Apr 2026 · 7 min
No XXIX · FAMILY
The wills conversation no one wants
I was sitting opposite Mum at the corner table at the cafe on Beach Road on a Sunday at 10:36 in the morning, and the sun was hitting the water and the place was about half full and a kid two tables over was crying about a babycino.
28 Apr 2026 · 7 min