A documentary about brotherly love, facing fears and fulfilling a final wish
There’s a Hole in My Bucket
International premiere at Newport Beach Film Festival, Wed 21 and Thurs 22 October. Get tickets
☆
International premiere at Newport Beach Film Festival, Wed 21 and Thurs 22 October. Get tickets ☆
Royd’s story
Every family has one, the brother who repeatedly climbed to the top rung of the ladder, the cousin who played with matches but never got burnt, the kid with an inborn, insatiable appetite for risk, always on the lookout for the next rush. That’s my little brother, Mike.
Even when he was young he’d be jumping his bike as far as he could or climbing to the top of every tree he saw, while I watched horrified. As he got older, he got bolder. He loved any form of physical activity and was always unsuccessfully trying to drag me along, be it jumping out of a plane, snowboarding, skating, knee-boarding, basically anything that got his heart rate up.
In September 2012, Mike was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease (MND), ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. We knew it was terminal with no known medical cure. It destroys the neurons that send signals to the different parts of the body while keeping the mind perfectly intact. You become a prisoner in your own body as it aggressively renders your physical form useless. On January 28th 2015 my beautiful, strong, fearless brother passed away.
When we found out his diagnosis, we went to a very dark place with the realisation and weight of knowing the inevitable would be arriving far sooner than it should. It evoked an enormous amount of fear in me. As his big brother I had a duty to look after and protect him, and being told you are absolutely powerless to help as your brother becomes very ill, very quickly, was hard to come to terms with and difficult to accept. But however difficult for me, it was nothing compared to what Mike dealt with daily. This would be devastating for anyone but for such an active adrenalin junkie like Mike, it was a particularly cruel hand to be dealt. The illness gripped him tight, and I knew that it wouldn’t let him go, but it didn’t pull him away from me without a fight. We linked arms and pulled back as hard as we could and faced it together right until the last moment. Together with his girlfriend, I spent the last 3 years caring for him, and while it destroyed me seeing him little by little lose the ability to do anything, he constantly blew my mind with his strength, spirit and determination to face this awful condition head on.
Mike always wanted to go to Queenstown, New Zealand, the adventure capital of the world, where he could feast on all the different crazy adrenalin sports it has to offer, but he never managed to fulfill his dream. So he set me a challenge: to walk in his shoes and do it for him. He’s drawn up a bucket list, a seriously bad-ass bucket list and I’m going to tick it off by any means possible and face my fears as he faced his. This is no ordinary bucket list though. Mike wouldn’t simply want me to do a bungee jump, a 500ft canyon swing or white water rafting… which is terrifying enough for me.
He’s enhanced the fear with a liberal dose of his humour. Mike loved orchestrating any awkward, embarrassing situations that would make me look as big a buffoon as possible. There was no greater joy to me than seeing him laugh, and he laughed the most when he could set me up for a fall! Over the last two years of his life, he compiled a list of 50 things he wanted me to do. I had absolutely no idea what they were or what I was letting myself in for.
I did the first of Mike’s 50 at his funeral service. His girlfriend handed me a note that he wanted me to have, which gave me a pretty good indication of the style of what was to come. On the walk to the pulpit to say a few words, he wanted me to trip over! Of course, I did it, and after the gasps and looks of pity and concern had eased off, I held up a sign that said ‘Trip Over’ and explained that he was to blame. Typical Mike!
I’ll admit I’m a wuss… a big girl’s blouse. I squeal at the sight of a spider and haven’t a thrill-seeking bone in my body!
I prefer cups of tea and gardening, and I’ve always done everything I can to avoid tricky situations, so taking on Mike’s list was probably the last thing in the world I would ever have done if left to my own devices. But I’d made up my mind that I would do whatever he’d instructed, no matter what. So my lily-liver had to take a back seat as I worked my way through Mike’s insane list of thrill-seeking tomfoolery.
Along the way, I got to experience a part of his life that he loved so much, while knowing he’d have been splitting his sides at every compromised, ridiculous and downright terrifying situation he’d put me in.
I did this because I’d learnt some very important lessons over the previous few years. I’d watched my brother go from an incredibly active, healthy man in the prime of his life to someone whose body gave up on him and who needed care 24 hours a day. He taught me to grab life by the balls, never have any regrets, enjoy every breath and always look for the next smile.
That gave me a rock-solid resolve to do anything he’d put on that list. I would have run down the street naked, tattooed a sailor on my chest or shaved my hair off, anything for that smile I knew he’d have had. Unfortunately for me, he knew this too, and he’d taken full advantage of it when putting the challenges together, exactly as I would have done to him!
This became far more than just a bloke on a jolly doing crazy dares. It was about the strength of two brothers’ bond, built while daring to face his mortality together against a very real ticking clock. There were moments of fear, laughter, sadness and emotion that I could never have fully prepared myself for, but there could have been no better way to push through that fear and find courage than with his memory and the unbreakable connection of our love.
My hope for this film is that it ignites the passion for life that should be raging within all of us and inspires people to take absolutely nothing for granted. To fully appreciate the family and friends we hold dear and close, and not wait until something terrible happens before realising just how precious they are.
It became a journey of discovery and inspiration, and a reminder of just how sweet and precious life can be in the very little time we have to live it.
Together with the bonkers, crazy storm of adrenaline sports and dares, there was another rich layer woven into the fabric of the journey: the peaceful calm of soaking up the beautiful, epic landscapes of New Zealand.
Through all of this, I also hope the documentary raises awareness of such a little-known and unfortunately underfunded disease, one that devastates lives in such a cruel and indiscriminate way, and shows those affected by it that they are not alone and definitely not forgotten.
I will not walk backward in life
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