It’s been the roughest year yet for Antonia Kidman, who has opened up on how her family is coping with grief.
In September last year, Antonia and her sister Nicole Kidman lost their father, Dr Antony Kidman. And just seven months later, came the tragic and sudden death of her former husband and the father of her four older children, Angus Hawley.
“We are just working through it together, through the tears,” she tells the new issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly, on sale today. “All I know is that my father died and then their father died. I can support and be there for them because I know what they are going through,” she says.
“It just means that every day is about loving life and making the most out of it. That’s why I am here [in Sydney] right now to spend four days with Mum. It is all still raw and we are all taking time to adjust. I am not analysing it too much.”
It is clear that Dr Antony Kidman was much loved. At his funeral, his daughter Nicole made this touching eulogy: ““I am Nicole Mary Kidman, the oldest daughter of my father. I am able to stand here as one of the lucky ones in this world.
“I am a girl, a woman, who was raised by an extraordinary man. He was a good man, a compassionate man, a strong man a man that was always there for me.
“He was my thinker, confidant, my friend and my protector. “I had a great, great father and in the true sense of the word, he was a gentleman.”
Antonia was talking to The Weekly as part of a special feature on women who look much younger than their years – and it’s surprising that most reveal it’s keeping young in mind and spirit, as well as with diet and exercise, that is their fountain of youth.
At the age of 45, Antonia also reveals she is embarking on a whole new chapter, as she is studying law externally with an ambition to work in social justice.
Antonia has a happy brood of children – Lucia, 16, Hamish, 14, James, 12, and Sybella, eight, who were followed by Nicholas, four, and Alexander with husband Craig Marran, a lawyer turned banker.
Yet, she stresses, “there are six children in our family – it is never four and two”.
Antonia has been living in Singapore for five years, and it is clear she relishes the ex-pat lifestyle and the chance to spend so much time with her children. Exercise is a huge part of her life – even the fun type, when she walks to the market each evening, with one or two children tagging along beside her on scooters.
