There is a theory of grief known as Continuing Bonds, that emphasises maintaining a connection with a deceased loved one, rather than letting them go, as a healthy and adaptive way of processing loss. It means that when someone dies, the relationship doesn’t end, but continues in a changed way. We don’t hold the person at a distance, or push the memories of them away to avoid pain as we try to “move on”. Rather, we keep them close and carry them with us in the ways we think, act, and show up in the world.

Recently, a young man from our community went into hospital for what was meant to be a simple, routine procedure. Day surgery, half an hour under anesthetic, and back home a couple of hours later. But it didn’t go to plan. Instead of spending an hour or two in the recovery ward and then going home, the young man endured multiple medical procedures and ended up in a high dependency step-down unit, with intensive monitoring and nursing care for over two weeks. 

Sitting with that during the days that followed, we found ourselves thinking about Cameron, and reflecting again on how his way of caring for students continues through the people he taught and trusted. 

Years ago, I drove Cameron to that same hospital to visit this same young man, still a teenager then, to sit with him after he was hospitalised for another simple procedure that turned complex. Cameron had only recently been using the wheelchair, and I remember navigating the unfamiliar challenges of parking permits, wheelchair transitions, and waiting for lifts instead of bounding up the stairs – things that became part of every day, but were brand new to us back then. 

That was the most dramatic part of that visit – getting there and into the room. The visit itself wasn’t special or profound. It was just Cameron doing what he always did. Showing up, sitting beside someone, and being present. 

Track forward 8 years later. 

This time, when we were invited to visit, I felt that same pull. It wasn’t about obligation, or duty. It was just a quiet, steady knowing: of course we’ll go.

And somewhere in those moments before and during the visit, I felt the concept of a continuing bond as a lived experience, rather than as a theoretical model in the grief literature. Cameron once wheeled into that hospital room to sit with this young man when he was a teenager. Years later, we were preparing to walk into the same hospital to sit with the same young man. 

Cameron is gone, but the line of care continues through us. Not because anyone told us to. But because people carry things forward as a way of maintaining connection… a continuing bond. It doesn’t mean that Cameron is guiding us or watching over us, just that he remains present in the patterns of behaviour that we shared with him, and that he unknowingly shaped in us. He remains present in the habits he built in us, in the way we show up for people, in the way we keep certain values alive. We act in ways that still carry him.

Cameron isn’t here. There’s no version of this where he walks (or wheels) through the hospital doors again. There’s no explanation that makes any of that easier or neater. But the way he moved through the world and showed up for people didn’t leave with him. It lives on in his people. 

It lives on in moments like this, when someone else feels that same instinct to show up, regardless of convenience or comfort, and even when life is already very busy and full.

We often talk about legacy in big ways. Programs, communities, milestones. But sometimes it’s much quieter than that.

Sometimes it looks like a hospital room, years apart. One visit, then another. One person showing up, then someone else doing the same, carrying the memory of the first visitor. The thread of care running through those moments.

No grand meaning. Just a quiet echo. Just a reflection on how care travels through time.

And maybe that’s enough.