Mentally preparing to enter the game of Australian Survivor is a big task for all the contestants.
But it was a bigger hurdle for South Australia’s Henry, who sadly lost his mother due to pancreatic cancer weeks before filming started.
“It’s so tough because it’s been a massive journey when for three years,” he tells TV WEEK during a chat in Samoa.
“It was a rollercoaster of thinking you’re losing her and getting her back and hope is an emotion that is cruel, which I’ve come to learn.”
Henry as a young boy with his mum.
Henry, 26, put work on hold to care for his mother, with the “fake yoga instructor” admitting he was able to let her know that he had made it onto the show before she passed.
“She knew before she passed that I progressed and she knew this was my dream,” he says.
While some might’ve withdrawn from the competition, Henry felt the opposite.
“She would just want me to be here to do this,” he smiles.
As for the isolation and time with his thoughts on the island, Henry is aware it could give him the time to reflect on what he has been through, and with that comes sharing his story to the cast mates and the nation.
“I was talking to the psychologist and she said ‘You’re going grieve no matter what you can’t tell when it’s going to come.’”
Henry admits there is no denying the hole her passing has left in his heart.
“She honestly is the greatest person I’ve met,” he says.
He is also the first to admit that because of the amazing woman she is, he knows it will be hard for him to find a woman for him to settle down with that he admires as much as his mother.
“I remember saying in my eulogy, ‘If for some miracle I meet a girl like you again, I’ll marry her.”
