Tom's story
Tom passed away, without warning, a month prior to his 25th birthday. Found at home on his day off work by his partner and I, he appeared to have suddenly collapsed. He could not be revived. Fit and healthy and a bright new future ahead, 8+ years on his family is still asking why.
As our young family was growing up, I recall the feeling of absolute horror whenever I heard or read of accidents resulting in the death of young people and children. I thought of the devastated families left behind and their pain was inconceivable to me - the thought of losing any of my children was the worst nightmare I could possibly imagine.
Tom was our third of four children. He was always a quiet, reserved person who had a close circle of wonderful school friends whom he never lost touch with even after he left school (some we still remain in contact with and see from time to time). Tom had a passion for ball sports and seemed to seldom have a ball of some kind out of
his hands, bouncing and kicking them around the house despite being told to ‘stop it or else’! He was a passionate Sydney Swans supporter and player of AFL and loved the social life that came with it!
Tom was ‘living the life’ when he passed suddenly on 16th March, 2017. Three months prior, he and his long-time partner returned from living in London for 2 years. When he finished his degree at Macquarie University in 2014, he was unsure as to what he wanted to do so he and his girlfriend decided on a stint in London for 2 years. With my husband and I living there and a spare room in our home, it seemed a good opportunity. Both of them made the most of their time there - Tom did some bar work for a while then worked in his Dad’s consulting business and in between travelled whenever the opportunity arose. They both met loads of different people and generally embraced their overseas experience.
Whilst living in London, Tom developed an interest in coffee and as well as experimenting at home with different styles of coffee, he would be constantly seeking out new speciality coffee shops to try. Before leaving London in November 2016, as an interest, Tom decided to do a barista course. He then knew this was where his passion lay and that he wanted to pursue a career in the coffee industry. He started formulating a business plan as he ultimately wanted to open his own cafe in the future. In early February 2017, he was fortunate to land himself a job back in a cafe / roaster in Sydney that offered the potential for him to learn all aspects of the business. Around the same time, he and his girlfriend found a small, inner city apartment to rent and moved in together. He was back in touch with his close school friends and his footy mates and was planning to re-join his local AFL club and start playing again. Tom was now blissfully happy - he had his dream job, was living in his own place and was back living closer to his brothers, sister, niece and soon-to-be-born nephew, all of whom he looked forward to seeing more regularly again. He had started on a new, exciting career and life was looking really good.
At the end February, I unexpectedly came back to Sydney from London following the sale of our family home there. I expected to stay for a couple of weeks to oversee the move of everything we had remaining in the house. On the 16th March, two days prior to returning to London, I arranged to meet up with Tom at a framing shop nearby to his apartment to arrange the framing of a picture for him as a gift for his birthday the following month. The plan was to then meet up with his girlfriend afterwards to go for an early dinner nearby. However, Tom never showed up. I rang his mobile and left a message expecting to hear back from him that he was simply running late. When his girlfriend showed up about 45 minutes later and we were still unable to contact him, we decided to walk back to their apartment hoping to find him there. Despite a niggling feeling of dread that he had had met with some terrible accident, on the walk back to the apartment we made light conversation trying to ease each other’s fear about what may have happened.
On entering the apartment, we found Tom, seemingly asleep on the couch in front of the television. However, he could not be woken......and my worst nightmare started to become a reality. The paramedics worked on him for close to half an hour, but I think I already knew somehow that it was going to be pointless. An autopsy later could not find a cause of death and in conclusion, his death was determined as ‘unexplained’.
I always saw myself as a ‘fixer’ - I am sure most parents would identify with this. No matter what the problem any of our children encountered, we look for a solution ‘to make things better again’. On this occasion, this was unexpected and beyond fixing. For the rest of our lives, Tom will be noticeably missing from family photos and all of those special events and achievements in our lives will be tinged with a certain amount of sadness that he is not with us to celebrate them. The 20th April 2022 would have seen Tom turn 30 - for each of our children when they were younger, my husband bought them a special bottle of red wine to be kept and opened on their
30th birthday. We will gather as a family next year to open Tom's bottle of red and drink a toast to the short but very happy life he had.
The questions about what happened will never go away. Through a chance meeting with Professor Chris Semsarian, my sister passed on to me information about the research he and his team at Centenary Institute in Sydney are doing to find answers into the causes of these unexplained deaths in young people. They have shown us the utmost kindness, compassion and much needed support.
Their dedication to this important research into the causes of these very tragic deaths is so important in giving hope of preventing them in the future but also to provide answers for the many families like ourselves who find themselves part of a ‘club’ we all wish we were not a part of.
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Written by Belinda, Tom's mum.