‘I get very emotional when I talk about him,’ David, 61, shares. ‘Sometimes you think: “Should I show emotion?” But this is the person I am and there’s no shame being emotional about a closeness and a love I have for my father.’
Sharing his story with Claire Halliday for her new book Things My Father Taught Me, David has his own chapter where he details his incredibly close and influential relationship with his dad, Dean Koch, who passed away in 2009.
‘When he died, it all took us by surprise. He’d had a form of leukaemia, which he never told us about. He died of a brain bleed,’ David explains.
‘I was absolutely devastated. He was the guy that I always talked to about everything,’ he writes. ‘I still miss him terribly. That will never stop. I don’t really think society knows how to support adults who lose their parents. It is “just life.” ’
Read the full story in this week's issue of New Idea, on sale now.
