Jeremy Howe's mate stirred him awake. It was 5.30am and Jono Bullick's phone was ringing.
Jono and Jeremy had just driven into phone range after eight days on the Gibb River Road through the Kimberley. It was late last year and Jeremy had just finished his first year at Collingwood, Jono his last days at a job in Port Hedland.
![Magpie Jeremy Howe this week.](/web/20170311115215im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/u/n/a/f/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.guvorp.png/1489215834758.jpg)
They were camped outside of Katherine, south of Darwin, and the phone broke the morning silence. It was Justin Howe on the phone trying to get hold of his little brother. Jeremy's phone was turned off. Jono handed the phone over to Jeremy but Justin was crying so much he couldn't work out what was being said.
"I thought he must have stuffed up and been in jail or something. He was a bit of a wild boy back home but he had settled down a fair bit. He is 29 now, but I thought he had stuffed up again he was so upset. But then he told me and I was just …" Jeremy said, looking away.
Justin finally got it out. Their mum, Kim, had died overnight. She was 57.
"She had a heart attack in bed. My old man is a firey, he had been a firey for 28, 30 years and he worked on Mum for 45 minutes until the ambulance got there and then they worked on her for an hour and my brother and Dad had to sit there and pretty much watch the whole thing."
Jeremy hung up and sat for a while in a daze before ringing his Dad back 15 minutes later. He was sure it just couldn't be true. He can't remember what happened next, it all feels blank now. Jono packed up the camp, they drove to Darwin, waited for flights and 16 hours later arrived in Hobart.
Jade Rawlings was a coach at Melbourne but a good friend of his parents. He was already in Hobart when Jeremy arrived. He stayed for the week. The funeral was the biggest in Hobart in 30 years.
Days later, Jeremy had to return to Melbourne for Collingwood's best-and-fairest award. He sat at the table, his collar undone, tie loosened and a beer in his hand, when the award winners were announced. He was pleasingly around mates but anticipated no laurels for his season. Then he polled the fifth most votes for the year. He stood on the stage and could only think of his mum.
That has not changed with time. He still reaches for the phone to call her on the way home. Jeremy used to ring her a few times a week at her work managing a medical centre, just to have a chat. He keeps reaching to pick up the phone and call the centre anyway just to talk to her colleagues at the medical centre in Sorell, north-east of Hobart, where she managed reception, just to see how they are going.
"I have not built up the nerve to ring up because the only reason to ring is to speak to the old girl. It rattled me there for a while. You still have your moments where you don't believe it's happened.
"It's a shock factor because Mum and Dad were one of those ones that were definitely going to make it out to the end. My old man was going to retire in three years - they both were - and they had the whole thing planned with the shack up the east coast ready to go to. But now …"
Life's moments kept coming as constant reminders of where his mum is not. Soon after her death it was to have been her birthday. Then it was Kim and Andy's wedding anniversary and soon after Christmas. They all tumbled on one another like waves. As soon as he had his head clear another life moment would arrive.
At Christmas, they went to the new beach shack of his cousin Matthew Wade, the Australian wicketkeeper, at Dolphin Sands overlooking the Freycinet Peninsula. It was good to be together but it was also a reminder of the large block up the road in Bicheno with a shack on it that Kim and Andy had bought to retire to.
"I can't comprehend how Dad is. We still have chats about how he is doing and he still has shocking days. It's hard for him. Like I said, he was in it for the long run. They balanced each other out so well.
"I would talk to Dad about footy and I would talk to Mum about off field, relationship advice, just anything but footy. So me and Dad almost start talking about that now. It was a bit awkward at the start but he gets the gist of it. My priority is my old man now and my partner gets that.
"In terms of moving on, I don't think I will ever really move on."
As a fireman Andy works four days on, four off. Jeremy keeps asking him to fly up on each of his days off and just stay with him and his partner, Carly, in Melbourne. He comes up a bit but not all the time.
Jeremy thinks differently about football now. He is thankful for the life it gives him but the life and family suddenly appears more fragile than a career in the game.
He thinks about life after the game and the electrical apprenticeship he never finished when he was drafted. Having left school as a 16-year-old after year 10 he was six weeks short of getting his ticket as an electrician when he was picked up as a 20-year-old in the draft by Melbourne. He never went back to finish those six weeks and now it is too late. To qualify now he has been told he has to start the apprenticeship all over again.
"I got lost in the footy world thinking, 'How good is this?' I hear Mum's voice in my ear: you have got to do it. Footy is not forever."
She knew nothing was forever.