James Bushell
“It gets a lot easier to deal with emotionally, and there can be as much joy in what you had, as sadness in what’s been lost.”
James Bushell’s arts-loving dad died after a short illness when James was in his mid-teens. His mother gave him space and independence as they both grieved his father, something James believes preserved their still-close relationship.
Sixteen-year-old James Bushell was about to leave for a school play when the phone rang. A family friend was on the line asking if he wanted to come to the hospital to join his mother sitting alongside his father, who’d been taken to Wellington Hospital that day.
“The communication was interesting,” James says, thinking back more than twenty years ago. “They said something like, ‘Do you want to go to the school play, or would you like to go to the hospital?’ At that point, I had absolutely no idea what the situation was. I mean, people go into hospital regularly, it's not a major thing, and I didn’t then understand the severity of what was going on with my father. The question seemed to say, ‘It’s okay if you go to the play’, and as a teenager my mind was, ‘Of course, I’m going to go to the school play…’
“But there was something else in that question that made me think something wasn’t quite right, so I went to the hospital. It turned out my father barely made it through that night. I was really glad I went to the hospital.”
James’s dad had developed acute pancreatitis. Until then he’d been fairly fit and well, although he did have diabetes, which James says may have had a hand in the pancreatitis. After that first touch-and-go night in hospital, he started to get better over the course of the following month. He couldn’t speak but could communicate using a special communication board. Everything was looking up, so James went back to school.
“But he developed an infection in the pancreas. He had surgery but died within twenty-four hours of them detecting the infection. We sat around him, holding his hand, and watched the monitor as his heartbeat went down and down. Eventually the doctor came over and said he’d passed. It was sort of an anti-climax because we are expecting to see a flatline…” James gives a rueful chuckle.
“I expected that moment where we would know he’s gone, that there would be no more heartbeat, but it was just the doctor saying, ‘He’s gone’. It’s a very strange feeling, watching someone in the space of a small amount of time, quickly – or slowly, as it seemed in the moment – pass.”
Alongside James and his mother sat his two brothers from his dad’s previous marriage. They’d been playing recordings of opera and Beethoven, as his dad loved classical music, and sitting with him, touching him, quietly talking. Over that time James played out scenarios in his head: How would it feel when his dad did die? What would happen next? How would he cope?
“Like an actor might, I tried to imagine these things, to recreate them in my head. In my mind I'm like, ‘Okay, it's gonna be hard, but, you know, it's gonna be fine’. When he did pass away, the difference between my expectation and the pain I did feel was worlds apart. When no one was around, there was a physical, gut-wrenching emptiness that manifested in almost physical pain.
“Even then, though, while I was going through it, there were sort of two parts to the pain. In one, I was going, ‘This isn’t fantastic, this is really sad’. But there was also a curiosity, a fascination, so in the other part I was thinking, ‘Wow, I've never felt a physical or an emotional sensation of this magnitude before’.”
James was off school for a few days, then, back at school, the support from his friends was mixed. While some were more concerned with catching him up on their relationship status, others were incredibly supportive. One friend who’d already lost both his parents wrote to say he understood he’d be in a lot of pain, but also that he knew James’s experience would be different to his own. A group of girls from a nearby school had read the book, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, so they folded paper birds in memory of his dad.
That book tells the story of a young Japanese girl who has cancer from radiation exposure following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Inspired by the Japanese legend in which folding a thousand paper cranes can lead to a wish – especially for health and wellbeing – being granted, she begins folding paper cranes as a symbol of hope and healing.
“The girls from this school wrote me a beautiful letter and started folding when Dad got sick. They were up to about 700 by the time he passed away, so they continued on and did the whole thousand. That was all huge hearts and emotions, and it was one of the most special things. It wasn’t about the paper cranes – it wouldn’t have mattered what they did – it was about caring, the expression of support and love. Another friend who’d lost a parent used to get frustrated when people would say they were sorry about him losing his parent, and he’d think, ‘What are you sorry about?’ That made him quite angry, whereas for me it was an expression of care. Navigating this is very different for each individual but, generally, there's certainly a level of maturity gained through a traumatic event that enables you to empathise with others.”
James is definitely one of life’s emotionally literate, nice guys, which by his nature, and almost certainly by his nurture, feeds into what he does as a job – a job focused on creating a more equitable and sustainable world. He founded a consultancy that advises businesses on how they can operate more ethically.
“For me, ethics is a key framework that helps me determine why I'm here, and I want to make sure this lovely planet is around for future generations. I think having a parent die young gives you more immediacy of the fact we have only a limited time on this planet. That early engagement with death certainly makes you consider what it is you want to do while you're here. So, I figure that while I have a short time on Earth, this is a good way to be spending it.”
Another contributing factor to James’s high empathy quotient is likely the prodigious amount of often-solo travel he’s managed to pack into his – at the time of our interview – thirty-seven years of life. He’s sailed super yachts (and less-than-super yachts), started up a free school in Thailand, and volunteered on a programme supporting migrant workers in schools and orphanages on the Thai-Burma border. He’s also trekked the mountains of Peru and Papua New Guinea to source ethical cocoa and coffee beans direct from farmers.
James and his father in the South of France.
His propensity for travel was partly enabled by his dad’s death, which sparked a change in his relationship with his mother. As an only child, James says the previous dynamic was that his mother would often play mediator between him and his “quite strict” English-born father. But now it was just the two of them.
“I've always been pretty independent, but after my father’s death we spent a reasonable amount of time apart. I went to boarding school for a while, but then came home, and then my mother was away quite a bit during my final year at school. So I spent a lot of time alone, looking after myself, cooking for myself. If Dad had still been around, that wouldn’t have happened to the same extent.
“Being alone like that might sound like it wasn’t a good thing, and for some it might not have been, but I think it was useful for our relationship to have space to process things for ourselves. It probably saved our ability to have a healthy and functional relationship, as we still do. Having that space gave me a level of maturity that allowed me to head overseas, to go to France, where I couldn’t speak the language, as soon as I’d finished school. That was also very maturing for me. I never felt the need to call my mum frequently, but I always knew I could call and that support network was there. I've always felt very supported, which I think enabled me to do more. And I have always felt very loved – even when my relationship with my father was strained, there was never a question of whether I was loved.”
James came back to New Zealand after a year and enrolled in university. If his dad had still been alive, he reckons he’d most likely have “taken the traditional approach” and gone to university straight from school, skipping that maturing year in Europe.
James remains close to his mum and his brothers from his dad’s previous marriage, one with whom he started a vineyard in Thailand – yes, Thailand – after leaving university. “That’s really where we got the chance to bond,” he laughs. He wouldn’t call this much-older brother a ‘father figure’, although he recalls being aware of men who could teach him what he needed to learn.
“I do remember going to the house of one of my good friends and I really wanted his father to teach me how to shave. Like, I wanted to have one of those father-son moments you imagine will happen, even if it wasn’t with my own father. I became sort of disillusioned in that respect, because, actually, there was no replacement for my father, and that hoped-for experience didn't bear out. From this other dad’s perspective, why would he pick up on what I wanted? I didn't specifically ask him, and he had no expectation that I wanted to learn to shave from him.
“I think it was more that I was searching for – not an emotional connection, really – but the emotion from the passing on of knowledge from someone who could show me the ropes of certain tasks that my mother couldn’t.”
His mother did re-partner for a while, and James liked the man’s approach – that he was happy to help if James wanted him to teach him something, but he never tried to impose himself or his ideas on the teenager. He didn’t attempt to become James’s dad.
James is in no danger of forgetting his own dad – he sometimes sees him in the mirror when his hair is combed a certain way. And he sometimes dreams he’s alive, “which is tough because you wake up and feel gutted all over again”. While he says he doesn’t feel a great need to talk about his dad, or the effects of his death, he can talk to his mother and his brothers to learn more about the man they had so much more time with.
Like, his Liverpudlian father was once a photographer for The Beatles, for example, an impressive fact that James didn’t fully comprehend at an age when his relationship with his dad could be quite strained.
“When you’re sixteen, you're trying to determine who you are, so the house was tense at times. One of the things that’s fascinating for me is that my brothers found exactly the same thing, however, once they passed that crest into adulthood, the dynamic between them changed completely. Then our father became someone who was fun, and their relationship became a strong friendship. That has happened with my mother for me. As much as I'd like my father to still be alive so I could have that relationship with him myself, I don't put too much thought into that. That's just not what it is.”
Talking to his mother and his brothers, helps keep his father’s memory alive, as does having selected mementos. “There is something nice about having stuff from my father. I carried a photo of him for a little while, and kept mostly little things that reminded me of that connection. Over time I was able to let go of more and more. I remember being at a Christian camp and there was a fire. Everyone else had gone to bed, and I threw a piece of his clothing – a handkerchief or something – on the fire. That was a way of me releasing and processing. Like what you do with your closet, I’ve de-cluttered things over the years until now I have only a few key items.”
Those key items include some of his dad’s suits – which James doesn’t wear – and his car – which he does drive, even though it’s not exactly fiscally or environmentally the best choice, so a touch off-brand for James. “But it’s a thing he really liked so there’s something nice about jumping into it.”
When James is telling me his story, it’s just ticked over two decades since his father died. Time is making things easier. “One of my brothers messaged all of us on his birthday this year, and sent around some pictures of our father. I probably remember his death day more – March 26 – but it’s not something we commemorate together. Celebrating his birthday has become more meaningful, I suppose.
“But there are still ups and downs, even now. I saw a photo of him recently, and it brought a tear to my eye. But it doesn't come with that gut-wrenching neediness it used to. Seeing his face sparks as much joy as it does sadness. I am so thankful to the passing of time for doing that, because that pain was quite unbearable. It has a demonstrable impact on you emotionally and physically, and it’s draining.
“I wouldn't cry in front of people, but when I was by myself, the howls and wails that came out were like something from a movie. Like some cathartic release of agony – that’s how it manifested. I don’t have that anymore, thankfully, and just knowing it does get easier is good. It gets a lot easier to deal with emotionally, and there can be as much joy in what you had, as sadness in what’s been lost.”
James is pleased he got to be with his dad when he died, and supports the restorative aspects of children being involved in funerals and ceremonies around death. “Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s very difficult going through that process, but I think having exposure to death is a good thing. Many Western cultures hide death away so much and I don't think that's the most appropriate way to deal with death. Knowing about death and being involved in it is beneficial, and certainly helped me with the healing process. Sitting with my father, all of us sitting around him and listening to Beethoven, it was an incredibly special and bonding moment for my family, as well as a devastating and heart-breaking one. Death and funerals can be horrific times, but being together as a family strengthens the bonds.”
In the end, he says, negotiating the death of a parent is about friends and family being there for the child in ways that express love and understanding without assuming they know how the child is feeling, or having set expectations of what that child wants.
“People are scared of engaging because they don't know the right thing to say, and all children want different things. But just saying, ‘Hey, we're thinking of you’, is great. Anything small is lovely. It doesn’t have to be 1000 paper cranes, although I still have them and, while I’ve lost contact with the girls who made them, I will always remember them. Those people were absolutely amazing for me.”
Advice from James on supporting grieving children
Allow space, and don’t be too strict
“The challenge is that everyone's so different, so knowing how to support a child whose parent has died is about understanding what that individual needs. I was a lot more introverted than I am now, so, for me, having time to myself was paramount, whereas other kids might want to talk.
“Adults around bereaved kids need the emotional intelligence to be led by the child, to listen to them and what they want, and maybe give them some leeway if they act out a bit. For me, it seemed some people thought I needed a ‘firm hand’ when I just didn’t. I wasn’t doing anything bad, I just needed space. I’d say be aware of the personality of the child, their individual tendencies.
“The main message here is the same as whenever raising a child – just love them, and go from that standpoint. That’s probably going to be the best response.”
Include fatherless and motherless children in what you’re teaching your own kids
“For adults outside the family, you don’t need to assume the emotional responsibility of the parent that's died, but, if a kid seems interested in what you’re teaching your own kid, don't be afraid to teach that kid, too.
“Without a father, there were stereotypically masculine skills I felt I was missing out on learning. I started to get hair on my face – what do I do with that? How do I shave? How do I do these man things? I didn't feel like I could go to my mother for that advice. So, I’d say be open to girls or boys who have lost their mother or father, and might want to learn something from you.
“You can’t replace their parent, but you can replace lost skill sets.”