A patchwork of love
As she waved her son off to serve in Afghanistan at the beginning of 2010, Helen Comport raised her eyes to the sky and silently prayed to her late husband, “Ian, please watch over him now that I can’t.”
Six months later and just one week before he was due to return home, Helen received the phone call that every defence parent dreads.
It was Monday June 22, 2010, and the now retired school teacher had just finished her day in the classroom when she turned on the news in the car and heard that Australian soldiers had died during a mission in Afghanistan. Waves of anxiety and nausea began to wash over the mother of four sons as she drove home.
Her phone rang in the car but she was unable to pick it up while navigating the winding bush road to her home on the outskirts of Melbourne
