Introduction:
The hardest journey we ever face is often the one we don’t choose. I still remember walking into our home, expecting the familiar sound of the back door, expecting to hear “Hey Ma, what’s for dinner?” I expected our son to be finishing up his organ practice, ready to tell us about his day. He played the organ at a tabernacle, at a conference centre, even at St John’s Cathedral in London. His music was beautiful. His presence — joyful and kind. And when he left us, the word “broken” took on a meaning I had never understood. We lost our Troy. And in that moment, everything changed.
You’re simply not supposed to bury your child. That sentence echoes in our minds every day. I was the one who knocked on his door one morning, to find him no longer preparing for work. The shock, the disbelief — I still wake up some days thinking it must have been a bad dream. Then the ache reminds me: it was real.
Yet in the midst of that unimaginable loss, we made a decision: we either become bitter, or we become better. In our case, we chose better. We tried to become kinder. Troy never spoke ill of anyone. So we honor his memory by saying: let’s “Troy harder” — let’s try harder to be like him. Let’s help more. Let’s love more.
Time becomes strange after loss. A day passes. Then two. Then a week. Then a month. You discover that you can survive the days. And little by little you learn to carry your grief alongside your living. But in the quiet of the night, when the house is still, you remember: don’t go to bed without telling your children you love them. Because you never know.
Still, hope meets us even at the darkest corners. I know — deep in my heart — that one day I will see Troy again. I find comfort in picturing him, playing the great organ in heaven, playing for angels. That image becomes my anchor. I cling to it when the emptiness threatens to overwhelm.
This is not a fairy-tale ending. It’s messy. It’s raw. Grief changes you. It doesn’t vanish. It becomes part of who you are. And yet… love, kindness, remembrance become the path forward. We carry Troy’s memory not as a burden, but as a compass. We carry the music he made, the laughter he brought, the warmth he gave.
So to every parent, every family, every person who has known this kind of loss: you’re not alone. You may wake up ache-filled and hollow. 
But you may also wake up determined to honour the one you lost — to let their life inspire your living. Because even when the world says “You shouldn’t bury your child,” we say: we will live because of them. We will love because of them. We will try harder because of them.
In memory of Troy, we choose to be better than our grief. We choose kindness. We choose hope. And we choose to live, remembering that one day we’ll join him again — his organ playing, his smile shining, the echoes of his life still guiding ours.