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When I was much younger, a boy of maybe five or six, I used to walk with my Dad from Bondi to Bronte. It was a special time for me – no Sisters or Mum – and I anticipated our weekly walks with as much excitement as most children looked forward to Birthdays or Christmas.

We would begin our walk at Bondi, weaving our way up the cliff on the narrow path. As we reached the headland, the wind would intensify, buffeting my small frame around like a doll. As the invisible, yet immensely strong, fingers whipped me around on the cliff’s edge, my Dad would grab my arm and hold me down. The infuriated wind would grab and pull, but could not loosen my Dad’s grip.

He was my rock, stoically holding me safe beside him.

As we rounded the point the wind lessened, and I was once again able to walk safely by myself. We moved into Tamarama Bay, and we would often go down to the deserted beach, standing in the shore and laughing as we splashed around. Then the surf would pick up, and the waves would come crashing down around us. As the water surged back out to sea, I would be dragged with it, until my Dad took hold of my shoulders and held me back against the icy pull of the sea. We would stand, the two of us, and taunt the ocean – daring the great blue expanse to snatch me away. But as much as it tried, the water was unable to remove me from the safety of my Dad’s side.

He was my pillar, always willing to lend me his strength.

After our foray into the shallow shoreline, we would be tired and wet, our hair and eyebrows full of salt. We would race each other to Bronte, and always he would let me win. Our walk complete, we would return home, and wait for the next weekend.

But as I grew up, we grew apart. As a young adolescent teenager, I despised the idea of walking with my Dad. Slowly the walks grew fewer and further between, until they stopped altogether. I never realized how much my Dad missed those weekly walks, or time together in our hectic lives.

I never knew how much I would miss them.

Time flowed onwards, and as the hands of the clock ticked forward, I grew. I moved out of home, starting my own life, and my own family. Years passed, and though successful in my endeavors, I yearned for something that was missing from my life.

Then I remembered the walks.

Suddenly feeling inspired, I hurried over to my father’s nursing home, ready to surprise him with a memory from years ago. As I walked him to the car, I was shocked at how frail he looked – he was skin and bones, a mere shadow of the man he had once been.

As I drove to Bondi, the age-old beginning of our walks, I noticed my father’s eyes were dull and lifeless. However, as I pulled up at the beginning of the path, a glow entered them and he seemed to grow a little bit. A smile broke his age-weary face and his eyes sparkled.

We walked along our old route, the same twisting path up the cliffs of Bondi Beach. However, unlike the deserted atmosphere that had once shrouded the path, now there were people everywhere. Surrounded by crowds, we once again embarked on our journey. As we approached the headland, the wind once again blew strong, but I found myself unaffected by the stiff breeze. Strangely, though, my father was now blown around on the cliff, as once I had been blown. I grasped his arm, and held him down. It occurred t me that our roles had been reversed.

Now I was the rock, a pillar of strength for my father.

We rounded the headland and the wind lessened, as it had many years before. My father walked on unassisted, but only at a shuffle, instead of the great strides he had once taken. When we reached Tamarama, he leant at the rails and looked at the sea. I could see the waves beckoning towards us, but my father continued to simply look sadly down at the breaking waves. I looked at his eyes, and saw the reflection of two figures in the water, but when I looked myself there was nobody there.

I looked back at my father, to find him shaking his head and turning away. It seemed that today we would not mock the sea, that we would not dare the great power of the ocean upon us. As we shuffled past, the waves rose high above the waterline and fell, leaving the beach flat and silent, like a final salute.

We walked slowly to Bronte, completely unlike our old races. I walked slowly with my father, holding his arm as he shuffled slowly forwards. Looking at his frail frame, a sense of sadness filled me. So many lost years, years that could never be recovered. I vowed, then and there, to continue our weekly walks from my childhood years and spend more time with my father.

But this was not to me.

My father died three days later.

For a while I was lost. I was numb on the inside. My mind could not comprehend the loss. Then emotions began to flood my body. Sadness hit me like the sudden grasp of death. The world had suffered such a great loss. My father had lived far longer than I, his mind would have been full of valuable experience. But he was gone, as was everything about him.

But then it dawned on me. I hadn’t lost everything of his – there was still something left.

It is now years on from the death of my father. I have my own son now – five years old and soon to be six. Every week we make time to walk from Bondi to Bronte, just as I once had with my father. Together we suffer the challenges of the elements.

When the wind blows strong, I hold my son down.

When the ocean grasps at him, I keep him back.

I am his rock, I am his pillar of strength.

I know that one day he will grow up. I know that he will grow away from me. I know that our walks will end. I only hope that he can understand what I finally understood about my own father.

Time had sapped his body. He had been weary with age. He had given me everything he could. He gave until he had nothing left, then continued to give. Time and age stole his strength. Then they gave it to me. As I had grown, he had shrunk. Even when he had naught left to give, age and time stole his final gift – life. Then they gave it to me, in the form of my own son.

I realize that I will grow old. I realize that time and age shall sap me of strength. But I know that strength will not be lost.

For my son shall live on.