“Trauma ran in our family until it ran into me.”

Courtney Ugle has never seen her family together in the one photo.

She has many photos of her mum and dad together, as a young and in love couple, but none of them with her and her three siblings. She hopes such an image exists.

These days, Ugle, a highly-acclaimed athlete and spokesperson, has lived longer without her father than she has with him.

As she told FW’s NAIDOC Week breakfast, she lost him to suicide.

“When I was 11 years old, my dad committed suicide. So early on in my life, we experienced grief trauma, the loss of a parent,” the proud Noongar woman said, the room falling silent with her words.

Courtney Ugle addressed a sold out breakfast event in Naarm/Melbourne.

“I didn’t really know what that meant. All I knew is that I didn’t have a dad anymore.”

As a child she grew up in a family surrounded by love. It was also a family that experienced family violence fuelled by alcohol addiction.

“I was born into an environment where family domestic violence was quite normalised,” she said.

“Obviously, as a young kid, you don’t really know and understand these things. I’m still learning as I go now.”

She shared that her parents separated when she was young, so has no fond memories of them being together. But, despite the turmoil, there was always love.

“I came from love and I’m constantly reminded of that,” she said.

“There was a lot that I couldn’t do as a young kid and I wish that my mum got the support and the love that she deserved. Unfortunately, she’s not here, but she has given me the strength and resilience to be able to do this work.”

The grief of losing one parent was compounded in 2016 when her mother’s life was also taken. She was murdered in her own home.

“So our lives turned upside down again, I was 19 years old, my mother was 42,” she said.

“Now I still cannot comprehend the death of my mum, sometimes it doesn’t even seem real but it is and that is ultimately why I’m in a space and I do what I do is to keep my mum’s name alive. My mum’s dignity alive.”

The fatal force that took Ugle’s mother’s life is now an epidemic in Australia.

As of July 2024, there have been 49 women across the country who have been murdered.

Ugle stressed the importance of speaking openly about our experiences.

“It’s alarming. Everybody knows that. It’s in the news. Everyone’s talking about it,” she told the still quiet audience.

“But what are we actually doing about it?”

She feels both her parents have armed her with such robustness.

She is the first Indigenous woman to captain the Essendon Bombers in the Women’s Victorian Football League, or VFLW, and was instrumental in the club’s development of their First Nations’ Women’s Pathway Program.

Ugle is also the founder of Waangkiny, a social enterprise that empowers individuals and communities to transform adversity into influence through the power of storytelling.

“Trauma ran in our family until it ran into me. So I’m taking it upon myself that this cycle stops with me,” she said.

Over 350 people attended the event, and all were silent as Ugle shared her family’s story.

“There was a lot that I couldn’t do as a young kid and I wish that my mum got the support and the love that she deserved. Unfortunately, she’s not here, but she has given me the strength and resilience to be able to do this work.”

Ugle didn’t share her story out of sympathy, or shame for her family.

“When I talk about this stuff, it’s not to bring shame to my family. It is to just bring light to real life, things that we experience in our communities in our homes,” she said.

“There should be no shame in talking about it, because if we continue to hide behind the relationship that we go through, we experience, how are we going to get better? How are we going to make a change?”

She shared that, in her experience, growing up around family violence was very normalised, something she knew was wrong.

“Mum did her absolute best for us kids. Now a lot of the time that wasn’t good enough and she knew that. But the way our community stood up and took care of us, fed us, looked after us,” she said.

“That’s what made me understand and realise that there is good in the world.”

She lives life with a glass half full mentality and can see good in all things. Her focus now is on creating change.

“I truly believe that my mum and dad are walking beside me in order to be able to do this work,” she said.

“I have hope that in this space, I can create change. I can empower and inspire just somebody to see the good in you know what this world has to offer.”

EVENT ARTWORK: Alysha Menzel
PANEL’S CLOTHING: WITCHERY
FLOWERS: Alchemy Orange
HAIR AND MAKEUP: Kahealea Coleman-Wilson
PHOTOGRAPHY: Tiffany Garvie
LOCATION: Sofitel Melbourne on Collins

THANKS TO OUR PRESENTING PARTNER