By: Mike Hosking | Friday, September 21, 2012

A nod at end the week to Bryan and Jo Guy, the parents of Scott Guy.

There seemed this week to be some sort of coordinated publicity run from the family. Ewen Macdonald’s former wife started the week in the papers, her sister in law was in Woman’s Day, and Bryan and Jo did the telly. Some in the print media tried to make something of the fact that Kylie might have been paid to talk. I wouldn’t have a clue whether she did or not and more importantly I don’t care. Good luck to her if she did. Good luck to her if some of the money might go to her kids and their future.

But Bryan and Jo were the stars. Bryan and Jo are everything you’d want your parents or grandparents to be. Bryan and Jo have been through hell. They have been through what the rest of us can only imagine and my guess would be we wouldn’t imagine it all that accurately. Their lives have been shattered. They look to be one of those close knit families who lived well thought out, well planned, productive, successful lives. They looked to be one of those families from whom good decent people come from, whom good solid lessons were taught and followed. They look to be decent, honest, productive people, the sort that none of this madness was ever supposed to happen to.

That’s why we’ve been gripped by all this. They’re us, or most of us. We see our lives in their lives and the big question mark that you ask yourself is if all that’s happened to them, happened to me, would I be looking and acting as impressively as they are? Could I cope the way they have? Could I offer the same sort of measured, intelligent, insightful, incredible insight they have offered this week?

If it was my life that had been torn apart the way theirs has, you’d like to think the answer was yes. But we don’t really know do we. And of course we don’t want to know. They show strength for their grandkids they said, but in doing that they show strength to us all. They remind us that even in the worst of times there is always light, always hope, always a way through, always a tomorrow and the tomorrow no matter where you’ve been is largely yours to shape. They seem to be shaping it in the most impressive of ways.

I hope speaking out was cathartic and I hope it gets the media off their back because I suspect that’s what drove the whole thing in the first place. Having seen them and heard their story, you wish them nothing but better days.

Photo: Getty Images