The missing piece of the puzzle
18 Jun, 2011 12:00 AM
It's a bleak afternoon by the lake and Peter Kimlin has just finished describing his life, including his happy childhood growing up in Canberra.
The youngest child of Cynthia and Christopher, Kimlin was a favourite plaything of his older sisters Victoria and Belinda.
''They dressed me up all the time and I was their little doll. They used to dress me up as superheroes, Batman or Superman or things like that,'' he says.
The chat about his life and his rugby ambitions is just wrapping up and the photographer standing nearby is looking at his watch.
So a last question is put to Kimlin. Is there anything he'd like to add?
Usually this is the point where a player says we've covered everything and the interview ends, or they go on to reveal an interest in greyhounds or classical guitar or something like that.
But as Kimlin sits, taps his feet and appears to be searching his mind for that something extra, he knows there's a big piece that's missing from his life puzzle.
Finally he decides to bring it out and place it down. And then a lot of other things make sense.
''I don't really tell many people this, but I had a brother, Hamish, and he passed away when I was 16,'' Kimlin says.
''He was a massive influence on my life and not a day goes by when I don't think about him.''
So the interview has to go on and the photographer will have to be late to that next job.
Kimlin crosses his arms as the wind picks up and shares his very personal story. Hamish took his own life in 2002. He'd battled depression and had been in and out of mental health clinics before it got too much.
''I was quite naive at the time. I didn't really read too much into it until it actually happened. It was only then that I realised it was a real sickness he had. I thought everything was going to be all right.''
Kimlin explains his initial reluctance to mention Hamish. It has nothing to do with any shame about his brother's death. It's more about his own natural guardedness and also the discomfort many people feel about discussing a family member who has died tragically, no matter the circumstances.
''I don't talk about it much. I don't tell someone when I first meet them that I had a brother and two sisters, because they'll be like, 'how old's your brother' and I'll have to explain it.
''It's not that I'm ashamed of it happening, but I don't really want to be in that situation, almost that I don't want people to feel sorry for me.''
Right now Kimlin is 25, the same age Hamish was when he took his life. Nine years his senior, Hamish was the same kind of strapping athlete as Kimlin. Both boys went through Canberra Grammar School nine years apart and their sisters through Canberra Girls' Grammar.
''He was a very tall specimen and a very handy wicketkeeper. He was actually in front of Brad Haddin at one stage,'' Kimlin says.
As he's made plain, Kimlin doesn't want his brother's story to define his own. And nor should it. With 43 Brumbies caps and two Test caps to his name, Kimlin is writing an exciting story of his own.
Yet, the loss of his only brother does explain things about Kimlin.
For one, his earlier statement that he's ''big on family''.
At the time of Hamish's death, Kimlin's sisters were living away in Queensland and the Northern Territory. They came home and have stayed home and the family is closer than it was before. Kimlin's sister Belinda has honoured the memory of her late brother by naming a son Hamish.
It also largely explains why Kimlin will be with the Brumbies next year and not the Western Force, who he says was ''very close'' to luring him west.
''I love my family and nephews and nieces and I'd find it so hard not being close to them,'' he says.
While his heart kept him here in Canberra, it could very easily have led the first red-haired Brumby away to Perth. Kimlin's girlfriend, Jasmine Keene, is a West Australian. They met three years ago in Mooseheads, the nightclub that has launched a thousand relationships, long and short. Keene was at the AIS on a netball scholarship and has since gone on to play in the national league for the West Coast Fever and Adelaide Thunderbirds.
Released from the Thunderbirds early this year, she returned to Canberra to be with Kimlin and now plays in the ACT netball competition.
''Meeting Jasmine was a great time in my life and I love her very much. I've really connected with her and it helps we have similar passions.''
Crass as it might be to treat sporting couples like thoroughbreds, if Kimlin, 198cm, and Keene, 191cm, were to have children, they'd have some pedigree.
Not only are they both tall, elite athletes, Keene's father Laurie was a 202cm AFL ruckman with the West Coast Eagles, playing 36 games in a career blighted by injury. If the WA ''in-laws'' struggle to understand this east coast game Kimlin plays, Laurie's experience of injury would at least encourage empathy for Kimlin's situation in recent years.
After a breakout season for the Brumbies in 2008, when he played every game, Kimlin was selected for that year's Wallabies spring tour.
He played his first game for the Wallabies in a non-Test against the Barbarians.
It was a two-minute showing and so he was unkindly dubbed ''Noodles'' (these days it's more likely be plain ''Kimmo'' or variations on the self explanatory Fanta, including ''Two Litre'').
The next winter he made his Test debut, at home in Canberra against Italy.
He earned his second cap a week later in Melbourne.
Since then though, the dream has been put on ice.
A shoulder nerve injury on the Brumbies' development tour of France in 2009 turned into an ordeal and he missed the entire 2010 Super Rugby season. A stint with Exeter to regain his form came to a premature end when he injured his knee.
During this time, Kimlin says he was often in a ''dark place'', and rugby was the furthest thing from his mind. Happily though he's re-emerged into the fold.
This year Kimlin has played 13 matches and starts against the Waratahs tonight at lock. He admits he hasn't rediscovered the form of 2008-09 yet, when his athleticisim and handling skills, honed on the basketball court as a teenage wannabe Michael Jordan, marked him a player on the rise.
But he holds hope that Robbie Deans hasn't forgotten about him as he pencils names down for his World Cup squad.
''I can't see into the selectors' minds,'' Kimlin says.
''But if I'm given the opportunity, I'll certainly make the most of it.''
