Children

Reflections on the summer of 2014/15

The tragic death of Phillip Hughes on November 27^th, 2014, was a devastating start to the summer of 2014/15. The twenty-five year old was struck by a bouncer and collapsed during a Sheffield Shield match at my beloved Sydney Cricket Ground. Phillip Hughes failed to regain consciousness and passed away in hospital three days later. As a mother of two cricket obsessed young boys, this horrific fatal accident left me pondering some of life’s big questions.

How do you explain the inexplicable? That sometimes life makes little sense. How do you reconcile the fact that dissecting the vertebral artery as a result of being hit by a cricket ball at the base of the neck is so rare it’s virtually unheard of? People just don’t die playing cricket. And yet it happened to this prodigiously talented boy from the country who fulfilled his dream of wearing the Baggy Green cap and representing Australia. That he died playing a game that doesn’t pose the huge risks of head injuries like some football codes leaves me stumbling for words. (more…)