When Hannah Richell's husband Matt died in a surfing accident at Tamarama beach in Sydney in 2014, her life as she knew it was destroyed. Ten years on, she shares what she has learned about grief.
A Knock at the Door
It was an ordinary Wednesday afternoon in the first week of July 2014 when two plainclothes police officers knocked at the door of their Sydney home. Richell was not there to greet them. She was a few streets away, working on a novel, when she received a call from her husband's PA, who said a Bondi detective had been asking for their address and that she could not reach Matt.
Richell tried Matt's number as she half-ran home. She called the childminder, who confirmed police had arrived. When she crossed the threshold, the detectives told her: "I'm sorry to tell you your husband has been in a surfing accident." When she asked if he was OK, they replied: "I'm afraid he died."
Last Moments and a Sinkhole of Grief
At the morgue, Richell spent an hour alone with Matt's body, kissing his temples and holding his hand. She noticed grains of Tamarama sand falling from his palm into hers. She later met Adam, the friend who was with Matt when he died, who described the suddenly shifting tide conditions, Matt's board coming loose, and the rip pulling him dangerously close to the rocky headland.
She wrote: "Grief is a sinkhole, opening up where real life once stood." In the months that followed, she visited Wendy, a forensic counsellor, and created memory jars with her children to capture happy memories of Matt.
Acceptance and a New Path
Nearly two years later, an inquest was held, deemed to be "in the public interest" because the death was high-profile and in a popular beauty spot. Richell said she could not bear for another family to endure a similar loss knowing it could have been prevented.
She came to see acceptance not as rightness but as allowing the loss to be whatever it is. She sold the house and moved on. Now, in 2024, she stands at the tideline at Tamarama, her feet planted, and reflects: "You will survive your greatest loss. You will be altered, but you will survive."
This is an edited extract from An Ocean and a Day by Hannah Richell, published by Bedford Square at £16.99.
