Facing her first Mother’s Day without her husband, Steve, by her side, a still grieving Terri Irwin opens her heart to Michael Sheather and enjoys being made a fuss of when The Weekly gives her a glamorous makeover.
Photography by Graham Shearer. Styling by Jane de Teliga.
For Terri Irwin, every day is a struggle. In public, she puts on a brave face, but, behind the smile, the upbeat persona and the positive attitude is an overwhelming and ever-present sense of loss. Though some of the raw pain that followed Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin‘s tragic death eight months ago has receded, barely a day has passed that Terri hasn’t wept or longed to hear her husband’s voice or feel his touch.
And yet Terri also feels that she has come a long way since September 4, when she received the dreadful news that Steve, 44, was dead, his heart pierced by a stingray’s barbed tail while filming a documentary on Batt Reef in Queensland. During the intervening months, Terri has found the strength to take on Steve’s conservation mantle and his mission to spread the word about our fragile ecosystems and the importance of animals to an audience that now spans the globe.
“It’s very strange to be eight months down the track from Steve’s death,” says Terri, 42. “It’s hard to get my head around the idea that, with time, you start coping better, because what often isn’t spoken of is that when you lose someone, as time passes, you miss them more and more, not less. I miss Steve now more than ever.
“I’m happy to take time to honour my grief, but I have so many things that I would like to accomplish. Steve always used to say, ‘You don’t know how long you are here.’ I try to keep that in the back of my mind. My grief comes very easily, but I keep putting one foot in front of the other. I’m quite surprised that eight months on, in some respects, it is harder, but I am a determined woman and I am seeing some accomplishments already in what Steve hoped for.”
Read the whole story and see Terri as you’ve never seen her before, only in the May 2007 issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.
If you’re looking for more Irwin action, check out the latest Ask Bindi — where Bindi Irwin answers your wildlife questions in the pages of The Weekly — and read our online tribute to Steve Irwin.
