Often, when politicians depart the national stage, combatants struggle to contain their emotions. But when it came time for Pat Dodson to say farewell to parliamentary life, the 75-year-old Yawuru man was stoic. Emotion, a kind of preemptive mourning, coalesced around the father of reconciliation like a gathering swell. Dodson kept his feet and looked beyond the moment he found himself in to the unfinished business.
Dodson has been treated for cancer, treatment which required him to visit Noongar lands. In an essay he wrote for the Monthly earlier this year, Dodson explained he shaved off his beard – the facial hair he’d grown since 1967 – to show respect as a senior man visiting other country. As is common with people who have experienced life-threatening illness, Dodson is now physically altered by his experience. He walks more lightly on the Earth.
