On Tuesday 2nd September 2025, I was sitting in a restaurant in Newcastle, waiting for my youngest son Nick to join me for lunch. I had driven four hours from home to meet him and he had selected the venue and was really looking forward to catching up again. He even had a birthday present wrapped and ready for me on the front seat of his car.
Nick never arrived at the restaurant. It was very late that night when the confirmation came that Nick had lost his life in a tragic accident, several hours before our lunch date.
Time seemed to stand still from that moment. It was like a giant pause button had been pressed as my life froze, somehow signalling that things would never be the same again after this pause is over.
I have been a Pastor for more than thirty years and have confronted death many, many times. I’ve helped so many families journey through their darkest hours. I know all about the stages of grief and what to expect and how to help people press on and find meaning the other side of a tragic loss. But this was different – very different. I had to do all of that for my own family and many of Nick’s devastated friends – whilst somehow putting my own shock, sadness, anger and devastation on hold.
Yesterday, Nick’s family and many of his friends gathered on Redhead Beach, just south of where Nick was living in Newcastle, to celebrate his life and thank God for the gift of Nick in all our lives. It was a brief but blessed time, as we stood by the ocean, where Nick loved to be as often as he could, and honoured a life cut short, but a life well-lived. Most importantly, we honoured a young man who was passionate about his faith and took every opportunity he could to tell others about Jesus and how much they were loved by God.
Words often fail us at a time like this. Whether we are prepared through the long illness of a loved one or whether it comes out of the blue like this – death confronts us at the very core of our being. All our philosophies, theologies and spiritual thoughts only get us so far and then each of us has to confront the fact that we don’t really know how to feel or what to think.
For all of our sense of importance, death reminds us that at the end of the day, we are made of dust, and to dust we shall all return.
Death is real.
But Nick did not fear death. He was a disciple of the One who conquered death, once and for all. While death had swallowed up all who came before Him, Jesus was too much for death. The instrument of death became the symbol of life. Jesus rose from the grave and gave this power of defeating death to all who would put their confidence in Him.
This is the gospel and the heart of the Christian faith: that death the unstoppable, death the incomprehensible, has now been brought low and is forced to submit to Jesus.
This is the faith which defined Nick. This is the truth of life and death which Nick shared with anyone who stood still long enough to listen.
Nick’s ministry will now live on in the people he led to Christ and in the many people who are now reflecting on just how influential Nick has been in their own journey in life.
After our celebration yesterday, many people said the same thing to me: “Nick would have loved this …” I am sure Nick was blessed beyond measure to see so many people come from across the country to celebrate his life and be named as someone who loved Nick. Many of the people standing on that beach didn’t know each other – but they all knew Nick – they all shared his life, his love and each one was impacted by his passion. It would have been Nick’s dream to see so many people he cared about all together in one place – giving God the glory. Yes, Nick loved yesterday, for sure and certain!
If you would like to know more about our larger-than-life son, you can spend some time on his Tribute site HERE.
After a vey long and incredibly difficult month, I now get to take off my Pastor hat and put on my dad hat and I suspect the journey ahead over the coming months will have its share of challenges – as will be the case for Nick’s mum and siblings. Your ongoing prayers will be appreciated and I thank each of the thousands of people across the world who have journeyed with us via Facebook, upholding us in prayer. It has mean so much knowing that we are never alone in the valley.
They say that ‘time heals all’ but that’s not true – it is just something people who are lost for words say when they don’t have anything they can give to help someone in their loss. Time doesn’t heal anything – it can actually just drive the pain deeper and deeper in some people.
Only God is our healer and deliverer and only God can take us through grief in a way that heals what needs healing, intensifies what needs remembering and empowers us to honour the one we have lost in the way we live. Nick did all he could to point others to Jesus, our true healing will come when we follow his lead and do the same.
“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.” (Jeremiah 31:3)
