Stephen John Purvis
Stephen died on April 24 2001, aged 15. My wife and I have 3 other children, all girls. Stephen was the third of the four. In the days after his death, as we prepared for the funeral, the phrase “always our boy” came to prominence in our thinking. We used it in the death notices and eventually on the headstone at his grave in a little country cemetery at Runnymede, where many members of my family are buried.
This poem was written on the fifth anniversary of is death, in 2006. My wife Jenny and I always take time off work on April 24th and go away for a few days. We spent the 5th anniversary in 2006 at Halls Gap in the Grampians.
One of the themes in the poem is around the notion that one of Steve’s struggles in life was managing the transition of adolescence. In the inevitable quest to make some sense of what happened, the possibility that the crisis precipitated by that particular life transition, building upon a history of low self esteem and depression, may have been a significant trigger in Steve’s final act of suicide. Who knows and can ever know?
The phrase “always our boy” reminds us both of the happier times of early childhood, and speaks of the struggle of a boy in transition, a struggle which overwhelmed him.
Always My Boy
As I look back across the span, I wonder what it means
This boy of mine who comes to inhabit those odd dreams
When things seem well and take on a small and welcome shine
So often does he come to call, this long gone boy of mine
When he was born in Bendigo what joy we all did know
A boy to join two girls and make the family grow
The maiden aunt she was quite pleased to keep the line alive
A male heir to a dodgy name but at least it might survive
He grew and was my boy, a proud Dad and his mate
We loved to saw and hammer, was a builder to be his fate?
We worked together on the house at the block in Mia Mia
But sometimes what he chose was to do was poke sticks into a fire
Playing, riding, catching, kicking, on track or court or table
Remember back to another day when life seemed safe and stable
But even then in that better place some demons could be found
The wet demon who came at night would disturb my boy’s safe ground
As adolescence came along the journey began to turn
The will to go and do and be was a fire that did not burn
The embers still had some warmth that occasionally we’d see
But often would this boy of mine into some dark place flee
We looked for help, we read and spoke and often did we listen
But answers now we did not know, our eyes would blink and glisten
An angry night to go back again, a cutting, thrusting, knife edge pain
The image of my boy handcuffed now seared into my brain
I wonder if it was a step, from boy to almost man
The crisis of that movement, the transitional demand
I wonder if I did enough as he struggled up that cliff
I wonder if…. I wonder if…. I always wonder if….
That fateful night he took the car and drove into the storm
An unlicensed trip in every sense, to challenge every norm
Was the house up at the block his ambitious destination?
Along the way my boy got lost, but he’d made sad preparation
In the darkness there he went to sleep, a long and lasting rest
Perhaps he thought for him and us, it would turn out for the best,
But now he’s gone, my boy, and he won’t be coming back.
Except in those odd dreams that leave me feeling black.
He lies now, this boy of mine, at a place called Runnymede,
I wonder if this tranquil site is indeed what he might need,
I wish there’d been another way, for life he did destroy
And yet I love him still, for he remains always my boy.
Kevin Purvis 24 the April, 2006