Maurice Webster saw just how deeply his son Joseph was loved when about 900 people came together to farewell him.
Joseph Wiremu Webster, 43, of Tauranga, and his cousin Johnathan Brian Webster, 54, of Dargaville, were pulled unresponsive from the water at Ripirō Beach on Kaipara’s west coast by lifeguards on the evening of January 3.
Attempts to revive them were unsuccessful.
The two men had earlier been seen struggling in the surf between Mahuta Gap and Glinks Gully, reportedly after being caught in a rip.
Maurice said the cousins had been out net fishing that day with another relative, who managed to swim safely back to shore.
Maurice said the survivor had told him he was “absolutely buggered” when he made it to the beach, falling over because he had “no energy”.
When he looked back out to sea, he could see Joseph face down in the water. He could not see Johnathan.
The service for Joseph was held in a home he was always “in and out of” - the home of his late grandmother, a woman who Maurice said “really loved him”.
To her, Joseph was a “rough diamond”. To 72-year-old Maurice, his son was a “happy-go-lucky guy” and “good as gold”, with a “great smile”.
Joseph “didn’t like being inside” and was “always on the go”.
Maurice, who was newly based in Kawerau, previously lived in Mount Maunganui, where Joseph was raised, attending Omanu School before going on to Ōtūmoetai College.
He said Joseph had some difficult years when he was younger, including being sent to prison “a couple of times”, but was working hard to turn his life around.
Before Joseph’s death, he was studying to become a social worker at Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology’s Windermere campus in Tauranga.
Maurice said he once asked Joseph why he wanted to pursue social work. Joseph told him he hated ”seeing kids getting hurt”.
Joseph had four children, aged 22, 16, 11 and 7, and two sisters.
Chelsea Webster, 17, said her brother “really flipped the script” when deciding to become a social worker and was someone who always wanted to help others. She said he had about two years left of his course.
Before his studies, Joseph spent several years driving trucks for freight and furniture-removal companies.
She wanted people to remember him as someone who “changed his life around”. She knew him as someone who was “always” there for her.
Joseph loved kids, she said, and would regularly bring her lollies when she was growing up.
Joseph and Chelsea were “like glue together”, Maurice said.
He said Joseph often visited his cousin Johnathan, who also died in the Northland tragedy.
Maurice described Johnathan as “a bit of a rebel”.
He said Joseph’s love of family was especially clear over the Christmas period.
Just weeks before his death, he cooked a big Christmas dinner for relatives at his grandmother’s home, preparing the meal for everyone to share.
Joseph was a “good cook” and insisted he would do it all.
Maurice said he was someone who never hesitated to lend a hand, whether it was helping him move house, working on cars, or simply showing up when someone needed him.
He “never harmed anybody” and was the kind of person people gravitated toward, Maurice said.
For those who knew him, Joseph was not defined by his mistakes, but by the man he was becoming: a devoted father, a caring son and brother, a loyal cousin, and a young man determined to protect others.
“He was a good boy”, Maurice said.
Police said inquiries into the matter were continuing and the men’s deaths had been referred to the coroner.
Annabel Reid is a multimedia journalist for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post, based in Rotorua. Originally from Hawke’s Bay, she has a Bachelor of Communications from the University of Canterbury.