SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 is a day that is deeply etched in the memory of Robina Haines.
It was the day she was preparing to collect husband Nigel from Perth Airport as he finished a roster at the BHP-operated Yandi mine in the Pilbara and start holidays.
That was until she had a knock at the front door.
It was the police and while they were short on details, they were sent to intercept Robina before she left for the airport, delivering the cruellest possible news.
Her fit and healthy husband, who was a non-smoker, only a light drinker and had used the gym at the mine site only the night before, had passed away.
He was only 44.
Not only did Robina struggle to come to terms with the news but she was unable to find out how Nigel died or who to turn to.
"It was a very confusing time," Robina said, reflecting on an event that was the start of a few curve balls that she and her family were then delivered.
Her unplanned journey included a self-imposed exile from the world and prompted the first of a series of books - 'Hello Grief, Be My Friend' - that not only helped her deal with the grief process, but also be a resource for other people experiencing similar emotions.
"I found that because Nigel died in a remote area I was up against so many roadblocks," Robina said.
"At one stage I didn't even know where he was.
"He had been flown to Port Hedland and at that stage I still didn't know how he died.
"And then he was supposed to be flown to Perth - and somewhere in between the morgue was not ready for him and he was then flown to South Hedland - and all this time I did not know who to call to find out what was going on."
Robina decided early on that people going through journeys similar to hers needed a guide and important contacts of who to turn to - from State Coroner details through to counsellors.
Eventually she found out her husband died from a blood clot in a coronary artery.
"Nigel was getting ready to go to work in the morning and then fly home and he was quite excited, but he collapsed and died," she said.
"I spoke to a guy who was at the gym with him the night before and he said there was no way you would have thought anything was wrong.
"He just dropped dead.
"And now I have a passion for heart health, and for men especially, to have regular heart checks," she said, using every possible opportunity to encourage people to be assessed.
Robina said it didn't take long to have a health check, particularly for people living in the city because they had better access to medical services.
"In the country unfortunately it is very easy to say I will get to that tomorrow," she said.
The alternative to not getting it done and playing Russian Roulette with heart health is brutal.
"No one wants to go on the journey I have gone on and I will do anything I can to get the information out there," she said.
Less than 12 months of Nigel passing away Robina noticed that her children, Jaxon, then 14, Savannah, 11 and Orlando, 4, were very anxious and worried about losing their security blanket - their mum.
Jaxon took the lead and encouraged his mum to have as many health checks done as possible, hoping she would be healthy and they wouldn't lose her to illness as well.
This grief-stricken mother conceded that if she wasn't pushed by the children, she probably wouldn't have had the wide-ranging tests.
But she is thankful she did.
Almost immediately Robina was at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital after being diagnosed with breast cancer and the family strapped in for another ride on an emotional rollercoaster.
"There was a whole new sense of grief in the house," Robina said.
"It caused a lot of fear and insecurity and there is a lot of that mentioned in the book.
"I also talk a lot about building resilience in children and the steps that you can take.
Robina said if children didn't develop resilience skills in their formative years, it could have major implications later on.
Her diagnosis came when she was 44-years-old - the same age as Nigel when he died.
Robina had a partial mastectomy on her left side and after all the treatment she now has a check-up every six months, with no sign of cancer in her body, but she will remain vigilant.
"I may consider a double mastectomy down the track as I have had a couple of little scares," she said.
Many will find it surprising that Robina started writing her first book the day after Nigel died.
"I felt so detached and didn't know who to talk to...I didn't even know where to go to find people to talk to, so I started writing about my journey," she said.
The chapter of her life when dealing with breast cancer became another chapter in the book.
"I put a lot of information in the book for rural people who are living with cancer, including the places to go to get things like a wig," Robina said.
The book took two years to complete and she locked herself away from the world for days at a time.
"I didn't want to see anyone," she said.
"When grieving it is good to have a safety zone and my safety zone was my book - I didn't want to go out and do anything."
The writing and grieving process morphed into a second book, My Shining Star, which has just been published and is a children's picture book that targets children from five to eight years of age.
It is a story about a little boy, who in search of heaven to find his dad, finds his comfort in nature.
Robina said the book was for parents to read to grieving children and was based on how her youngest boy, Orlando, dealt with his emotions.
The illustrations were done by New Zealand artist Jennifer Telford who Robina said did an amazing job transforming the story into pictures after reading the manuscript.
This accidental author has revealed there are another two books in the production pipeline.
My Warrior Mum is a child's view of his mum going through cancer and likens his mum to a warrior who is going into battle against cancer.
This will be followed by Looking through the Fish Bowl is about the specific emotions attached to the grief journey and alternative healing ideas to help these emotions.
"I am quite a spiritual person - I am into aromatherapy and crystal healing and there are recipes that can help your emotions when in grief," she said.
Robina said there was a lot of professional advice on the various stages of grief but she preferred not to focus on the stages.
"I never like to put stages on my grief - you have to live through these emotions and they can hit at any time," she said.
"It does not have to be in stages and it can chop and change and one minute you can be angry and the next minute you are in despair and I talk specifically about these in the book."
Robina said she wanted people to understand why they might be reacting in a particular way and hoped this would help in their own personal journeys.
Not only has she become a full-time writer, but has also ventured on the public speaking circuit, talking to people in regional centres across WA.
She never envisaged being a prolific writer.
"I am not claiming to be a master author, I am not an academic, I just wrote it as I felt," Robina said.
"I just wanted to connect with people more than anything.
"On my journey I spent a lot of time trying to find books that would help the way I felt and I also found that a lot of books were very clinical and written by doctors, or were written a long time after the event.
"Things change and feelings change and people forget things as time goes on.
"This is another reason why I decided to put pen to paper straight away and people get to read exactly how I felt."
TELLING the chilling story of losing the love of her life, her husband Nigel, when he was only 44 years of age, and then dealing with breast cancer the following year, when ironically she was 44 years of age, Robina Haines' stories has resonated with many.
She might live in Perth now, but her family has deep country connections, as she grew up in Coorow and her family, the O'Callaghans, still lives there.
Her husband Nigel, was from farming heritage in Merredin.
Robina met Nigel in 1997, when he was working in the Coorow area and, like many in country towns, when they were at the local pub.
At the time Robina had just returned from a holiday in London.
Not long afterwards Nigel got a job mustering at Warrawagine station, located between Broome and Marble Bar in the Pilbara and Robina followed, also working there.
They then relocated to Perth with Nigel keen to get into the mining industry.
Robina then became pregnant and Nigel got a job working for Iama at Coorow where they lived for the next seven years.
Nigel then worked at the Iluka Resources' mine at Eneabba and the young family built a house on a five acre block of land at Jurien Bay.
After being made redundant from Iluka, Nigel got a job at Laverton before he became a qualified trainer and assessor at the BHP Yandi mine, 90 kilometres east of Newman, in 2011.
With their eldest son, Jaxon, boarding at school in Perth and Nigel on a fly-in, fly-out roster, the family had settled into the Perth hills, but the couple's plans of a long and happy life together were shattered after police delivered the devastating news of Nigel's death on September 25, 2015.
While the family's grief and experiences have been well documented in two books already printed and in another two that will soon be printed, Robina said there were other lessons to be shared.
She has stressed the importance of having updated wills and knowing the exact details of life insurance policies - something a lot of people don't give much thought to.
Fortunately the couple had a will in place but they fought their insurance company for nearly two years to be paid out.
Robina had to engage legal help to challenge the insurance company that believed Nigel knew he had a heart condition and they did not want to honour the policy.
"They believed Nigel knew he had a heart problem but he didn't and we spent two years dragging through all the medical records to prove he did not know there was any sort of heart condition," Robina said.
"In the end we had an independent reviewer who went through everything to say there was no evidence that Nigel knew he had a heart condition.
"We are also lucky that Nigel worked for such a wonderful company and his boss at BHP organised a fundraiser for the children and I so we could get by while waiting for his life insurance to come through."
