Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.
~ C.S Lewis
After losing someone you love the inevitability of death seems to be so much more prominent in your day to day living. It hovers above you and every now and then it taps you on the shoulder to gently remind you that it’s not going away. Sometimes that reminder can present itself as more of a punch in the face as opposed to a tap on the shoulder.
Likewise we are given daily reminders of how grateful we should be to be alive, to live in the country we do, to have the opportunities we have and to be loved by the people that love us and yet for some strange reason we constantly choose to focus on the things we don’t have, the things that are not going right for us and the people that don’t love us in return.
My daily, and dare I say timely reminder, came in the form of a gentleman called Scott Blakely (Scotty) at the most unlikely of places – The Caulfield Cup. It was by pure luck and an amazing friend that I got to enjoy an all expenses paid trip to Melbourne for the races and while I considered that my reminder to enjoy life, little did I know that I would hear a story that would be the punch in the face I needed to understand and appreciate the fragility of life.
We hear stories every day in the media of lucky escapes, heroic deeds and tragic loss but until you have heard a story first hand, the impact and gravity of the event is not the same. You see Scotty was one of four men to have survived a tragic plane crash in Launceston in 1993, remaining to this day, one of Tasmania’s worst aviation disasters. At 21 years of age, bulletproof, with a promising footy career and a tribe of men he considered family; the likelihood of something like this happening was minuscule.
On the 17th of September 1993, a group of 26 members of the Lyndale Football Club in Melbourne set off on three charted flights to Launceston for an end of season trip. Scotty’s plane was carrying 10 passengers. As it came in to land it hit power lines, taking off the left wing, transferring all the weight to the right side and burst into flames on impact. Every passenger on the right side of the plane perished. Scotty was sitting on the left. He lost 6 of his best mates that night and the road to recovery for Scotty was a long and challenging one. With full thickness burns to 33% of his body, pressure garments and stockings became Scotty’s armour for the next two and half years.
I’m not retelling this story for dramatic impact or shock factor, although if you are anywhere near as emotional as I am I will assume you are reading this with tears in your eyes. My motivation is somewhat different. I’m telling it for perspective. I stood outside on the grass of Caulfield Racecourse with goose bumps and tears as Scotty recounted the events of a day that changed him forever, feeling like the biggest knob-head firstly for worrying about whether or not mascara was running down my face (so not important) but secondly for allowing myself to become so caught up in my trivial day to day worries and fears when standing in front of me was a man who had grown from one of the most traumatic situations a person could encounter.
I listened intently as Scotty recounted what had happened and how the hardest thing about moving forward was taking the permanent scars and survival guilt with him. Why did he get to live when others didn’t?
While I feel I could have asked Scotty a million questions, the one I felt most poignant to ask was how in God’s name does one move forward from something like this? Scotty first and foremost acknowledged the solid love and support from his mum, dad and partner at the time as well as his martial arts practice, but it changed who he was, initially for the worst. It instilled a great deal of guilt and fear in him with the realisation that at any given moment life can be taken away. However, 24 years on, Scotty’s catalyst for moving forward has been his partner of 8 years, Maria, who Scotty affectionately refers to as his rock and being blessed with two boys and a step daughter. They are his daily reminder that life goes on, you need to deal with your fears and get on with it. He is a big believer that when your time is up, it’s up and you can’t go through life wondering when it’s going to happen because it’s not something you ever have control over.
For the last 24 years, on the anniversary of the crash Scotty has six bunches of flowers made up in the club colours of maroon and gold with a message for each of his mates. As he visits the cemetery he enjoys a six pack of bourbon, one with each mate. Next year marks the 25th anniversary which will be remembered back in Tasmania.
I have spent a good part of my life trying to control as many things as I could after encountering a lot of things I couldn’t. I closed myself in an unrealistic perfection bubble. I’m exhausted! I don’t want to spend the next 30 odd years living in fear of what may or may not happen. If Scotty can take some bloody brave steps forward to work with his fear instead of letting it consume him, then I really have no excuse.
So cheers to you Scotty, I don’t think it was by chance that you and Mark sat down the other end of a table with four super fun women at the Caulfield Cup 🙂 You inadvertently became my daily reminder that you only live once….but sometimes, just sometimes you get a second chance to live it bigger and better because there are definitely good things to come.
I want to leave you with some words from a song that both Scotty and I shared a mutual fondness for, while it typically delivers a message of outward peace, I feel it cleverly tells us to search for the ever-elusive internal peace as well:
Now I’ve been smiling lately,
Thinkin’ about the good things to come
And I believe it could be,
Something good has begun
Cat Stevens – Peace Train
Lx
