Ride The Light

How this world champion surfer found meaning in the wake of every father’s worst nightmare.

- Shaun Tomson

Man to Man/

I HEARD ONLY THREE words: “Mathew is dead.” Time stopped. Dead? I must have misheard. How was I that possible? I’d just spoken with him. It was like watching someone else’s life disintegrate before your eyes; someone else experiencing unbearable pain. I couldn’t process the information. This couldn’t be happening. How could I live without my son? Now a friend’s voice came on the other end. I understood only fragments. My beautiful son... playing a risky game... deadly consequences. My life – our lives – destroyed in a moment.

The Light Ends 

Earlier that day, at 9am, my wife Carla and I had a three-way business call scheduled with the New York office.

Life was great for the Tomson family in 2006. Carla and I had recently sold our apparel business, Solitude – which we’d started back in 1998 – to Oxford Industries, a billion-dollar company traded on the New York Stock Exchange. They’d funded a stylish new design studio for us near our home in Montecito and put us on a three year contract. We had a great relationship with both the CEO and president, and they were eager to expand the brand. We couldn’t have been more excited about the future.

I called South Africa from home, I was in California at the time. My son, Mathew picked up right away. It felt like he was sitting next to me. He was fifteen at the time and having some problems academically at the local high school. We decided a semester at Clifton, my older private school in SA would be a great way for him to get his grades up and reconnect with our homeland.

He was happy and excited, and told me he was playing his first rugby game the next day. “Hey, Dada,” he said. “I want to read you something.”