A little over two years ago, the life of best-selling Australian author Matthew Reilly was turned upside down.
Natalie, his partner of 15 years and a psychologist by training, took her own life at the age of 36 after battling depression and an eating disorder for years. It was early December in 2011, and after being away on a book tour, Matthew arrived home to an empty house.
Just 20 minutes there was a knock at the door. Matthew – who self published his first book at the age of 22 -opened it and found three police officers waiting to tell him about the news about Natalie, the woman he had married in 2004.
About a year after Natalie took her own life, Mamamia published an excerpt from a Weekend Australian article by journalist Caroline Overington about the shock Matthew had experienced when he become a widower at the age of 37.
At the time she wrote:
Sorrow has engulfed him. Reilly and Natalie had been together since they were 18. He had never taken a step in his adult life without her by his side, and then she was gone and in the immediate aftermath of her death he didn’t know what or who he was without her.
And so here he stands in the kitchen of the lovely old home they shared together, a gentle, ghost-like soul moving quietly around the kitchen, preparing a cup of coffee and then softly crying for a loss that is immense and raw.
… Asked what he loved about Natalie, Reilly says: “It’s simply that we were not the same. It is almost that perfect match, in that I would lean forward and she would lean back … She was gentle, and kind, and generous to a fault.”
This week, Matthew’s story was told again – this time on the ABC program Australian Story.
In an episode called “The Other Side,” Matthew spoke candidly about his life with Natalie, what is was like when she developed depression and how his life has changed since that fateful day in 2011.