Alan Marshall, whose son was killed after being pushed out of a window in a Perth pub, has written a book he hopes will help people with their grief. Photo / Warren Buckland
Alan Marshall, whose son was killed after being pushed out of a window in a Perth pub, has written a book he hopes will help people with their grief. Photo / Warren Buckland
Alan Marshall’s heart skipped a beat when he looked down at his phone and saw that the incoming call was from Western Australia.
It was a Monday morning in May 2011. Alan and his wife Wendy had spoken to their son Andy in Perth the day before — Mother’s Day.
The caller was a detective sergeant attempting to tell a dad his son was dead, pushed out the window of a Perth pub. He had broken protocol to ring Alan, asking if he had a son called Andy.
“I could feel myself collapsing in on myself before he even told me.
“Calls like that are meant to go through Interpol, but he knew that within half an hour the news would be all over social media and he was right. Our phone started ringing soon after.”
Twelve years later Alan has written a book dedicated to all who have experienced the devastating pain of losing someone they love, describing the news as the beginning of a “nightmare that you never wake up from”.
He has a special word for that detective sergeant.
“The detective sergeant was taken off the case but we are forever grateful to him,” Alan said. “We did get to meet him and I gave him a huge hug.”
The idea for the book came to him after attending a funeral and watching how hard it was for young people to express their grief.
“A phrase came to mind ‘The Hole in My Heart’. We aren’t very good at grieving. I wanted to help people with that but the trick was to keep it simple.
“Grief is a multi-layered beast. We felt as if we were on an alien planet, in another world. It’s a nightmare you wake up to if you manage to sleep.
Alan Marshall's book The Hole in My Heart. Photo / Warren Buckland
“You don’t get through it or over it, you learn to live with that hole in your heart.
“That hole in your heart is a place only that special person can fill.”
Alan’s book is for young and old alike and the content comes from his own experience. It’s beautifully written with some great ideas about learning to celebrate your missing person, and things you can do to help through rough times.
It’s a book to keep near and reach for whenever you feel the need.
“This book is a small offering that focuses on one aspect of loss and is in no way meant to be a comprehensive guide on grieving, not that such a book exists,” Alan says.
“Dealing with loss and grief is a multi-layered process and affects everyone in different ways and at different times. Navigating one of the most certain but guarded subjects of life can be tricky.”
It is illustrated by Carl Roberts. “The illustrations were really important to me. We went back and forth with ideas. I wanted the images to connect to the narrative to help with engagement. I’m really happy with the end result.”
Already he has had some lovely feedback, including one from an 87-year-old woman who rang him to say how much it had helped her.
“She told me her husband died 20 years ago. I asked her what his name was and then used his name while I chatted with her. Talking is so important.
“Talking about Andy is really important to us. We have grandchildren now that never got to meet him but we always talk about him.
“At first people didn’t like to talk about him. They would say, ‘there are no words’. We said it too. There were no words.
“But love has its own language and Wendy, my wife, and I talked a lot. Grief like that can put a lot of pressure on a relationship. We had a lot of help from Victim Support and we have just done a video with the Victim Support advisory group. Wendy now works part-time as a Victim Support person in Victim Support homicide.”
Andy Marshall was killed in Perth in 2011.
Alan says the hole in his heart is never going to go away. “There are times when you cope and times when you don’t.
“Sometimes you find yourselves going down and then you realise that something is coming up. A birthday, Mother’s Day which is bittersweet for us because it was the last day we spoke to Andy but also the day he died.
“It took me 12 months to write this book and it got to me after a while. I would run it past Wendy on a regular basis and toward the end she asked me if I had nearly finished because she didn’t know how much more she could handle.
“We have had to learn to be resilient and that doesn’t mean toughing it out. It means preparing for the tough times.”
Alan and Wendy were already going through a terrible time when they received the devastating news of their son’s murder.
Ten months before, their nephew and Andy’s cousin Scott Guy was shot dead at the gate of his family farm in Feilding.
“It was just such an intense time. Flying backwards and forwards to Perth for trials and retrials but that did give us some space from media. For Scott’s family, it was far more intense.
“We decided that the best way to handle the media was to talk to them. If we didn’t, people would just make assumptions and join dots. It was better to be open and honest and not isolate ourselves. It was so hard. We were all devastated and found our situation beyond bizarre. We were just a normal family.
“Being with family that understood what we were going through helped. You could cry, stay silent, walk out and it was okay. No one was trying to manage your feelings.”
The Marshalls have chosen to forgive the killer of their son, not for his sake, but for theirs. “We don’t want to leave our family with a legacy of bitterness.”
His advice to others grieving is to retain your hope.
“Our Christian faith has helped us. We knew this wasn’t the end. We know we are going to see Andy again however, that knowledge is not a magic pill. There’s still pain. It also makes you face your own mortality.
“My hope is that this book will be a resource for people working in this space and for anyone needing a bit of help with the hole in their heart.”
The Hole in My Heart includes some helpful contacts and people to talk to. It will be in bookshops for $22 or is available from Alan for $15. You can email him at alan.book.23@gmail.com.
Linda Hall is a Hastings-based assistant editor for Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 30 years of experience in newsrooms. She writes regularly on arts and entertainment, lifestyle and hospitality, and pens a column.
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