Gail Gardener
“It’s not until something happens that you really become aware of what Legacy is,” says Gail, talking about her involvement with NSW Police Legacy since her husband Constable Adam Gardener died in 2014.
They both had a vague notion that “If something happens, they’re there to help…?” but that was pretty much it. Adam contributed through payroll, but neither of them thought about it much. Everything became a lot less abstract in 2014.
Adam hurt his back during a training exercise. When the pain hadn’t decreased after a couple of months, he ended up at the GP, and then the oncologist. Within two and a half weeks of receiving the news that he had pancreatic cancer, Adam was gone. The couple didn’t have much time to say goodbye – to each other, or to their kids.
And then, the whirlwind. “People come to see you, and they’re offering help. Family, friends, everyone, and you’re just numb. You don’t really take a lot in.” Included in that initial onslaught of visitors and well-wishers was a representative of NSW Police Legacy, offering Gail and her family support.
“You say yes, yes, I understand, and on some level you do understand, but once it all dies down you have no idea what you actually agreed to.” What Gail really appreciated was that someone from Police Legacy came back. They checked in on her, they wanted to find out what she needed, they offered support. They started to show her a way back into life, and most importantly, introduce her to a network that would become like another family.
“Once you have the strength to go along, there’s just this feeling of being with likeminded people,” she says, of her first involvement with Police Legacy events. “Someone’s come before me. Somebody’s been there. You’re not crazy; you’re not a blubbery mess. It’s ok.”
It was the same with the kids. They very quickly discovered their people when they started going on the Adventure Camps, and discovered the comfort to be had from being surrounded by other kids who had all had a similar experience of loss. They could just be themselves – saying the stuff that they felt they couldn’t say at school; feeling the feelings that it wasn’t really safe to let out anywhere else except at home.
And with that growing confidence came new adventures. Anyone who had anything to do with the Remembrance Bike Ride last year would remember Caleb, then just 14 years old, riding the distance with two other young Legatees. “They rode for their dads,” says Gail simply. “And Caleb enjoyed giving back… that sense of supporting the organisation that’s supported him.”
Gail’s done her fair share of giving back too. Despite her reluctance to be in a spotlight of any kind, she sat with a table of other Police Legatees at the Blue Ribbon Ball – an easily accessible way for the largely-corporate audience to understand that the charity they were there to support was not just theoretical. She and the other Legatees were living, breathing, resilient examples of people who have been through enormous hardship but refuse to give in.