THE MOTHER
JO Ufer thinks of her son, Joshua, every day. The Australian drilling supervisor came from a family of Townsville miners. He crossed the Tasman after the company he worked for in Queensland, Valley Longwall, won a contract at Pike River, on New Zealand’s scenic West Coast.
He was 25 when the mine exploded six months later.
From her home in Singleton, on the banks of the Hunter River in New South Wales, Ms Ufer said Joshua would never be forgotten.
She was learning to live with his death.
‘‘I do not like the term,
‘moving on’, because it’s such a big statement. But we do learn to live with it.’’
But the loss of his life not lived with his Greymouth partner, Rachelle Weaver, and the daughter he never got to meet, Erika Ufer, was painful.
‘‘I see fathers with their children and think Josh never got the chance to see his daughter — there are so many family things he has not been around for.’’
Ms Ufer said she felt far away from events most of the time.
And the years of political battling over the reentry left her doubting it would go ahead.
‘‘But I went over there and sat in, when they were going through the risk assessments for the reentry, it became clearer in my mind.
‘‘It has all happened in the last 12 months. It’s amazing and I take my hat off to the agency.’’
She walked the mine’s drift to the 170m seal with other Pike River families last October.
‘‘It was a very emotional time and the closest I had been to Josh in a long time. It made it very real. But every time I go over I get the feeling I haven’t been able to bring him home.
‘‘I’m reconciled that I may never be able to bring him home.
‘‘Some people want to get on with their lives but, working in the industry, it’s important to me not to forget.
‘‘I feel the loss of Josh every day — you can not get over that.’’
Friends and family on both sides of the Tasman had made it a little bit easier, she said.
However, 10 years after the 29 men died, noone had been held responsible, and the company’s officials had moved to new jobs and lives with no implications at all.
‘‘I know Josh would have wanted me to live my life and be as happy as I can. I live my life for two people now.’’
Jo Ufer herself works in the Australian mining industry and has been recognised for her safety awareness focus.
In an open letter to the industry in 2013, after four mining deaths in Australia, she said it appeared the lessons of the past were not being taken on board.
‘‘My son died in an underground coalmine disaster, but the environment doesn’t really matter. Many of us get up, go to work, do our day’s toil and go home with little thought to the enormity of that risk.
‘‘I myself did not for one minute ever think that there was the chance that my son would go to work one day and that would be it. I would never speak to him, or see him or hold him ever again.’’