Susan during training for Kokoda. Photo: Supplied.
In the quiet final days of her daughter Gracie’s life, Woonona mother Susan Wallis made a promise — I’ll take care of myself. I’ll be OK without you.
On Thursday (7 August), Susan will honour that vow in the most powerful way she knows how: by lacing up her boots and setting out on the gruelling eight-day Kokoda Trail trek through Papua New Guinea.
As part of a group of 19 trekkers, including 17 veterans, Susan is leaning into the challenge as a personal test and a tribute to the strength her daughter inspired.
On her return, she will share her story of resilience and healing in Walking Through Grief … Lessons from the Kokoda Track and Beyond at the Illawarra Women in Business Networking Lunch on 12 September.
“In Gracie’s last weeks and months as I said goodbye often, knowing the end was approaching, I made her a promise that I’d take care of myself and be OK without her,” Susan said.
“Focusing on my fitness and health, both physically and mentally, is my way of keeping that promise.”
Palliatively caring for her disabled daughter until her passing in 2018, and more recently her elderly father, brought out the best in Susan and made her mentally tougher.
However, she admits she also likes stretching herself to do the hard things to maintain perspective and resilience.
“It’s not uncommon for people who’ve experienced trauma to go and do extreme sports and boost themselves physically,” she said.
“It’s a reminder of how strong you are and it gives you a way of focusing your pain.
“It’s about pushing yourself to your limits to prove you can do it and you’ve survived.”
However, days before flying out, she said the reality of taking on the 96 km trek had started to sink in – despite long having wanted to do it.
“I rode my push bike from Canberra to Wollongong about 11 years ago,” she said.
“I raised $20,000 for air conditioning for Para Meadows School, so that was for Gracie.
“One of my girlfriends who was on the trip with me said, ‘What do we do next?’ We said, ‘Oh, let’s do the Kokoda’ as a throwaway line.
“That couldn’t eventuate because of life and looking after Gracie, then, of course, Gracie passing away.”
At the end of 2023, good friend and Member for Cunningham Alison Byrnes invited her to Kokoda, but her father fell ill, resulting in her caring for him until his passing earlier this year.
Mark, Susan and Sophie Wallis looking at a portrait of Gracie. Photos: Sylvia Liber.
Between working full time, and caring for Gracie and her dad, she managed to maintain her training throughout.
“It was a lot of juggling, but it was really good for me to train, because, in all of that, it made me look after myself, stay fit and healthy and was really good therapy.”
Susan said the trek would mean she was off grid for eight days, with her only tasks to walk, eat and sleep.
Concerned about how she will cope as one of only two women in a group of seasoned hikers, her other task will be learning to lean on others.
“I have spoken to a number of them about my concerns,” she said.
“They’ve all got residual fitness, and they’ve hiked with packs before, but they’ve said they’re taught to leave no man behind.”
She was further inspired by meeting the last surviving Kokoda veteran Reginald Shard and hearing about his story and sacrifice.
“He didn’t start volunteering at the Kokoda Memorial until he was 86 and his wife died,” she said.
“Reg is a good story, because he is still functioning really well, because he found a purpose and he found volunteering.
“Outside of my work, volunteering and giving to the community is what drives me, and certainly what keeps me mentally well.”
Susan has raised more than $60,000 for charity over the years, with half of that for the Illawarra International Women’s Day’s Gracie Wallis Scholarship, an initiative that honours young women with a disability and helps them achieve their dreams.
Her latest trek will raise funds for Walk With Us Kokoda, an organisation creating opportunities for veterans to reconnect with a deeper purpose and community spirit that often gets lost after military service.
That message of giving back will form part of her IWIB talk, alongside how she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder while pregnant with youngest daughter Sophie – “before a lot of the most harrowing stuff happened” – and the powerful concept of post traumatic growth.
“I’ll be talking about my post traumatic growth and how volunteering for the community and looking after my mental health in terms of exercise and training have become more relevant as I’ve grown older,” she said.
“I’ll be encouraging people to think about how they can give back to the community, because it really does feel good, and how you can channel whatever your challenge is into purpose and making an impact.”
She will also talk about the importance of putting yourself first, explaining that while this trek was the first thing she’s done purely for herself, it’s also for her husband and daughter — because staying healthy now means they’ll have to take care of her less later.
Book tickets for the IWIB Networking Lunch on 12 September at Centro CBD, Wollongong and donate to Walk With Us Kokoda to support Susan’s fundraising.
