Growing up, I was Daddy’s little girl. His little sweetheart that could do no wrong. 

I thought my Dad was the smartest man on the planet. He was strict and let us know that there was no alternative. It was his way or the highway. I have fond memories growing up with motorbikes and horses and a bit of a Tom boy nature. 

When I was about 15 I heard him tell a mate, I’ve lost my little girl, it’s all about boys now. 

We definitely butted heads during my teenage years, but from the time I had my first job at 15 he knew he didn’t need to worry about me.

‘She’s got her head screwed on right’ he’d say.

I did well at school, I was sporty, independent, strong willed and in a long term relationship with a boy he loved by the time I was 19. 

As the middle child of his three children, I was the good girl who’s worst offence growing up was being over heard saying,

‘it’s okay, I’ll sweet talk him’

Which was about the only time I didn’t actually sweet talk him. 

Then when I was 21, my big brother died. 

Losing his only son at age 24 changed him, and for the first time in my life I watched my strong, alfa male, bread winning father be vulnerable, he’d felt the heart break of losing his father and other loved ones before him, but this was different. Of course it is different. 

At the time I didn’t recognise it as depression, because those were the early 2000’s where depression was very much not talked about. He became an angry, bitter man who buried his feelings in a beer bottle. He had always enjoyed a drink, but now it was to escape his reality. He wasn’t a joy to be around. Only those who have lost a child and have felt that pain can empathise. I certainly didn’t understand until I had my own children what true unconditional love really was.

He pushed the world and everyone in it away and as he and mum moved 8 hours from our home town we understandably grew further apart. 

He still knew he didn’t need to worry about his little girl. I was forging my own path in life and was safe and secure. I was one less thing he had to worry about.

Cut from the same cloth we were both stubborn to a fault, never wrong and possessed a short temper. We butted heads quite a lot in my late 20’s, at times not speaking for months at a time. He refusing to apologise, me refusing to forgive him until he did.

Then, in 2009 shortly before the birth of my third son, the life he lived as the party boy country footballer of the 80’s, where working hard and playing harder was the mantra, all caught up with him. He was diagnosed with a debilitating lung disease. Facing death and forced to consider massive lifestyle changes, my dad pushed back. Questioning his reasons for living he sunk further into his hole, not getting out of bed on most days. It was then that I comprehended that he needed help. By this time my young family had joined he and mum on the north coast.

Mum was beside herself, one day coming to work and begging me to go and talk to him, she said,

‘Please, he only listens to you’

Highly doubting that, I did as she asked and after a pretty confronting conversation, dad started to put his life back together, he was got help. Always a very proud man, asking for and getting help from a health professional was a statement that screamed to me,

‘I hear you and I love you’

As he rediscovered his will to live, and my young sons got to see snippets of the dad I remembered as a child, he was told he’d need a double lung transplant if he was to live. In his late 50’s he was told he had to lose close to 50kg.

Dad became my first ‘client’ in 2012/13. Definitely not qualified, I was already being pulled towards a career in the industry. I had enrolled in my cert 3 and 4 in fitness and my experience was my own weight-loss journey. Despite being extremely active until his mid-twenties, he had no idea where to start. 

He would only let me train him in my living room. He was too embarrassed to exercise in my yard, in case someone saw him. It was difficult for me to reconcile that this was the same man that raised me. 

He was committed and focused, he no longer drank, he cleaned up his diet and he never a missed a session. He started walking everyday and I’m pretty sure he even enjoyed our training and felt the satisfaction he got from getting stronger and fitter. It must be said that I definitely enjoyed bossing him around for a change. 

Then my husband and father of my boys died. And all of a sudden he did need to worry about me.

By this time we had grown close again and I was grateful that he was my strength. I knew his health was deteriorating as his lung capacity continued to decrease. We still had a job to do to save him though and that became my focus. He didn’t know it, or perhaps I was the one who didn’t know that our training sessions helped heal me too. 

I took a job as a membership consultant for a local gym as both a means to start my fitness career and provide for my boys. I was quickly given the opportunity to manage my own little club within the franchise and it was then that I told dad that to continue his journey he’d need to join my gym.

‘No way, gyms are for young people’ he told me. Bad luck, you are doing it, would have definitely been my response. 

So I paid for his membership and assured him that I would be there everyday. I handed him over to one of my personal trainers to do his exercise program for him. Everyday I watched him thrive as he made friends with our other members, he now was not only getting closer to that transplant list but he had a community of support in my club. 

He was known as ‘Christy’s Dad’ because that’s how he introduced himself. I knew he was proud that I was his.

By the end of 2014, Dad was on oxygen 24/7, even though he really hated what it represented, he was now able to put his own pride aside and cart that tank to his grandsons footy games. He never said but I know he didn’t think he’d last until he got his transplant

Thankfully, in 2015 Dad got his transplant, a new set of lungs that saved his life. He’d achieved his weightless goal. When he returned home some 4 months later, he kept his gym membership, trained regularly at home and walked his dog for a couple of hours everyday.

I knew I now didn’t need to worry about him.

He was back to being my Dad again.

There’s more to this story but I’ll stop there. This post has become more personal then I had planned. My objective was to talk about how dad helped me start my career and to send the message that it’s never too late, and we are never too old to start exercising. If dad can do it anyone can. I have heard just about every possible excuse to not start an exercise program that one could ever imagine. To be honest though, I haven’t heard a good excuse yet. There really are no excuses. 

Dad continued to exercise and was a member at the first gym I managed until the day he died from melanoma in 2019. 

I love you Dad.