'Devastating time': The personal tragedy driving NRL sensation
In the space of one year Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad's brother died, his mother was imprisoned and the family left New Zealand for a new life in Australia. This is the incredible story behind the Canberra Raiders fullback's rise in the NRL.
By Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad
My brother Tyson was five years older than me and suffered from muscular dystrophy from a very young age.
It’s a condition that attacks the body and it deteriorates quickly. You start to lose the function of your legs and arms. He couldn’t live a normal life but the impact he had on ours was immense. He touched our lives in many ways.
He and our family were told he wouldn’t make it past certain ages. Each time he got to that age they’d give him another age. It got to the stage where they just said ‘live as long as you can’. He was about 19 when he died.
That was a devastating time for us as a family. I remember vividly the car ride, driving down from Auckland to where he was staying with his mum.
We knew he was sick and I guess he was just holding on for our dad to see him. After we got there it wasn’t too long before he passed away in his sleep.
I remember Tyson coming to watch me and my brother play games of footy. We would also go to Mount Smart and watch Warriors games and we would be down the front because we couldn’t carry his wheelchair up the stairs.
Later, every time I ran out there to play, I’d remember that clearly.
Every time I run onto a field, still, I feel grateful. Blessed to be in the position I’m in. Every time I run out I always looking up knowing that he and some other family members who have passed are watching over me.
Everything for a reason
My mum went to prison in late 2009. She was sentenced to eight years and did four years of it.
To this day I don’t know exactly what happened. I haven’t wanted to ask her and I’m happy not knowing.
My uncle was in a bad group and when he died my mother got caught up in a few bad things.
She’s going well now. But it puts things in perspective, not having your mum for four years.
It was very hard on my dad having to play both roles for that time.
We were struggling in NZ. My dad was juggling getting us ready for school and everything else, like a single parent in a sense. It was tough on him, and my older brother, Deon, could see that.
He bought our tickets. Told my dad, ‘You’re booked, you’re coming over on this date.’
The date was December 15, 2010. I was 15, my brother Ranginui was 11 or 12 and my sister Zanneja was seven or eight. My older brother Sonny and I were alright but it was a lot heavier for them.
He told me how proud he was, that I had been on that path since I was four. He doesn’t usually say too much and he was starting to get emotional. I was starting to get emotional as well.
My mum understood. She knew it would be hard for all of us, but that it was the best thing for our family at that time to move to Australia.
I went to the prison to visit her for the last time before getting on the plane to Australia. That was one of the toughest days of her sentence, for obvious reasons.
We moved over and I kept in contact writing letters to her, talking on the phone.
It’s tough to look back on now, but I understand if we didn’t move to Melbourne I wouldn’t have been picked up by the Storm and the pathway through 18s and 20s probably wouldn’t have come.
In the early years in Melbourne I missed a couple of Christmases and birthdays because I had to stay in training and I didn’t get to visit mum, apart from one funeral we went to. It was a tough time.
Mum was released from jail in 2013. I came home to celebrate my 18th birthday with her. I went back to Melbourne to finish under 20s in 2014 and 2015 but then signed with my home club because I was missing my family so much.
I’m not sure how life would have panned out, but I doubt I’d be here, playing for the Raiders if I hadn’t moved to Melbourne when I was 15.
I just know that everything worked out for a reason.
Read the full story at PlayersVoice.