Heartbroken father puts pen to paper

These are the words on the back cover of a book written by Northmead resident Dick Beets, who recently had his book “Déan in Top Gear” published.

Beets lost his son (20) in a car accident in 2012.

Having to cope with the loss of his youngest son, Beets writes a riveting tale of the journey and life of his son before and after his death; much of the book is a fabrication of his imagination, as he makes reference to the afterlife.

Beets said the reader has the freedom to decide what is fact and what is not.

“To carry on with day-to-day life without your child is extremely painful,” Beets said. “I used my imagination to escape to the world where Déan is now living.”

In the third chapter, entitled “Time to go”, Beets gives a detailed account of the night Déan was in a car accident in the early morning of July 7. He was declared brain dead the following afternoon.

Beets said it was the most difficult chapter for him to write and completing it was a milestone.

In the fourth chapter Beets gives accounts of a time he spends and speaks to his son in a different realm, following his death.

As the book title suggests, Beets relates many moments and shares anecdotes from the time Déan was little to the time before his death that reveal the manner in which his son lived his life, to the full and “in top gear”.

“Something was driving him to take from life as much as he could, as if he knew subconsciously that the end (for him) was near,” he added.

Emotionally charging, the father of three draws in his audience and brings them to the scene of the Unitas Hospital in Centurion where his son was taken, and the turmoil and trauma that ensued.

Inevitably the machines that held his son’s life were switched off (by him) and that led to his depression and landing in a psychiatric hospital.

That is where Beets realised the commonality in people who’ve lost their loved ones and experienced trauma to resort to suicide, a factor that plays into his objectives for writing and publishing the book.

Beets hopes that through reading the book, readers will learn and realise that time is short and that there is a hope that can be found in traumatic experiences much like the one he experienced.

The book was published on August 15 this year and is available to order on www.publishingworldsa.com

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