BACK IN THE DAY WITH MY DAD

By Shaun Tomson

1970 – Buffels Bay, South Africa – I had just become top seed for the South African Surf Team to compete in the World Championship at Bells Beach, Australia.

My dad didn’t like to talk about the shark attack. He wouldn’t directly evade the issue but he’d skirt around its edges with his own brand of strange humor. “The shark died of blood poisoning” or “I don’t know who got the bigger shock, me or the shark.” My mom said he experienced terrible nightmares but us children never saw them. He was always smiling; totally un-self-conscious of the terrible scars the black fin’s teeth had left on his arm. He could find humor in any situation. The attack happened shortly after he had returned from the Second World War in 1946. He had been a tail gunner in American B25 Marauders flying for the SAAF and beating off fighters with his twin 50 caliber Brownings and dropping 1000-pound bombs on the Italians and Germans. 

After the attack he’d traveled to San Francisco for extensive surgery to attempt to regain the use of his right arm and had to undergo a series of skin grafts from his stomach. He’d tell us with a smile that the scars on his stomach were from ack-ack, anti-aircraft fire. After the surgery he travelled to Hawaii to recuperate. He stayed in the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and befriended the Kahanamoku clan – Duke had been his hero as a young boy and my Dad fell in love with the Hawaiian culture and lifestyle. We were the only house in South Africa where shoes had to be left outside the front door. His love for Hawaii rubbed off on me and Duke became my hero as well. My barmitzvah present wasn’t a sheaf of stock certificates like my classmates but a trip to Hawaii, to the island that he loved. He found a smile in any situation in life. He gave my sister Tracy a pumpkin for a birthday present. He’d been telling her for weeks that he was going to buy her a pumpkin, and when she opened the beautifully wrapped box, there it was and she burst into tears. 

He’d just pulled through from the attack, after being in critical condition for some time. For years afterwards I’d have people come up to me on the beach, “You’re Ernie’s son. I helped pull your father in.” He told me that when he got hit the shark lifted him straight out of the water and dropped him back in, and with blood all around, the fear really set in. He was riding a little wooden surfboard. He said he’d never seen the ocean clear so fast. Men were scrambling up the pilings, shredding themselves on the mussels, so people thought that there were multiple attacks. Only one swimmer, Brian Biljoen, had the courage to pull him in. He was rushed to Addington Hospital on the beachfront and the doctors packed his arm in ice. It was a blazing hot summer so when the hospital ran out of ice, all the hotels on the beach would bring in ice. He’d been one of the country’s best swimmers and lifesavers and was training for the European games and Olympics. The shark bite ended his swimming career. He was 22 years old, a great athlete, and it had all come undone.

Ernie Tomson – South African Junior Swimming Champion – late 1930s.

Amazingly my father never let the shark attack scare him away from the sea – he had a deep love of the ocean and the beach life and he transferred that love to his children. My earliest memories are of the beach, going for a tiger tim. He’d talk in rhyming slang. The beach boys, like the Cockneys had their own language: a swim was a tiger, money was tom,shortened from tom funny. Our beach was a narrow stretch of sand wedged between a ribbon of high-rise hotels and apartments to the west, and the Indian Ocean to the east. The beach had always been a big part of our family life; my earliest memories are of sitting on the sand with my Mom and Dad beside me, with a big hamper of food in front of us and an umbrella overhead. My Dad would sit in his deck chair with a cigarette and I’d impatiently tug at his arm and say “ Dad, let’s go for a tiger, let’s go for a tiger”.

My Dad would take me down to the surf, pointing out the dangers of the jellyfish, the stinging bluebottles with their zinging tails, and the powerful fast moving rip tides that ran out beside the piers, stealthily sucking out swimmers. The dangers of sharks he seldom spoke about even though he’d been hit less than 20 years before. So I knew about the dangers early but they were all brushed aside and we’d plunge in and swim out to the backline looking for a suitable wave to catch, hoping to find a broadie, a wave that would enable us to track across the wall, parallel to the shore. Sometimes we’d just get a foamie, a mass of rolling whitewater and we’d body surf straight in, trying to keep our bodies as stiff as possible and my Dad would raise one leg while he raced forward, like a rudder in the wind; I don’t know what it did and I still don’t but it sure looked good, so I copied that cool style of his. From body surfing it was a quick progression to surfoplanes, a corrugated rubber pillow about a meter long with handles on the front. My brother Paul, cousin Mike and I would battle our way out to the backline and bomb down the dumpers, screaming with the adrenalin rush of the drop. And then my Dad got me my first board, a 4’6” Wetteland Surf Rider, a mass-produced mini-board, with red rails and a clear chop mat center. To me I had a never seen anything as beautiful before, my very own, brand- new little surfboard.

I can remember that first wave on a board like it was yesterday. It was 1965 at the Bay of Plenty and I was 9 years old. I waxed up with a candle and made my way out through the shorie, the impact zone where the waves broke right on the sand. With the world to my back and the horizon ahead I was truly on my own. The foam rumbled towards me, I swung my board around, dug my little arms hard into the water and paddled. The whitewater picked me up, shot me forward and I leapt to my feet and stood up. That feeling of stoke instantly imprinted itself on my being; happiness and fear, exhilaration, speed, conquest all melded together into one rush of sensation. And the view, that overview of land, looking over and above it all, racing along on an invisible band of energy, three inches above the water, separated by just a little sliver of glass fiber and for a brief moment, a master of my little universe. Surfing right there, right then, gripped me hard and fast and just never let go.

My Dad could see how much I loved surfing and it became his interest as well. He couldn’t surf because the shark attack had severely limited the use of his right arm but his enthusiasm for the new sport I loved knew no bounds. My Dad was already sports mad – rugby was his favorite and he had his season tickets at the half way line at Kings Park so every Saturday afternoon it was off to the rugger to watch his teams, Collegians or Natal, to see the legendary fly half Keith Oxlee try to get his ball down the line to the winger Trix Truter. Natal wasn’t the powerhouse of the ‘80’s but my Dad loved the action – it wasn’t about whether you won or lost, or how many tries you scored but how you played the game. Hit him low and hit him hard was his credo and he loved courageous crashing tackles. To my father sport was a game of honor – there were no gray areas – He would tell me there is nothing more despicable than someone who cheats at sport. You win or you lose and when you lose, you lose like a man and when you win, be humble about it – all powerful lessons for his teenage son.

Along with his brother Sonny, my Dad owned Durban’s largest panel beating business so of course he made and designed the town’s first beach buggy for our trips to the beach – blue sheet metal covering a VW bug chassis with a blue and white striped roof and a little white fringe and stacked up roof racks where we would permanently leave our boards. When the surf was up and the southwest was blowing he would pick my brother and I up from school, stop by my cousin’s Mike house to pick him up and take us down to the Bay, which became the center of my surfing universe. By 1968 I had graduated to a regular board after outgrowing my little belly board. When Wetteland, Durban’s largest surfboard manufacturer got into financial difficulties my Dad decided to step in and buy a portion of the business. He bought a new building for the company and with Max Wetteland entered into an agreement with 1964 World Champ Midget Farrelly to make the Farrelly boards under license. After discussions with Max and a promoter friend Ian McDonald they decided to put on the Southern hemisphere’s first professional surf contest to both promote the boards and make some money – they would bring Midget out and he would be the big draw card for the crowds and generate the media excitement as they planned to set up grandstands and charge admission and award the huge sum of 500 rand for first place. The contest was to be called the Durban 500.

Midget arrived and I was totally star struck to be in the presence of a surfing god. I watched him pull his boards out the travel bag – he’d bought 2 with him; a speed board with a narrow nose and sleek tail modeled after Hawaiian big wave boards and a double ender, a rounded egg shaped board, so called because there wasn’t much difference between the nose and the tail. There was a horrified look on Max’s face. Midget had sent along the shaping templates to Max months earlier and Max had shaped boards for all the top surfers in Durban and we all thought they were the greatest boards we had ever ridden. It turns out Max had completely misunderstood the templates. Instead of making 2 separate boards Max had made one, combining the pointy nose of the speed board with the round tail of the double ender, like a car manufacturer making a car with front of a Porsche and the rear of a Volkswagen. At the time it could have been a major design breakthrough if we’d stuck with it but Midget took one look at what had been done and the design was scrapped. I’m sure that blunder made Max cringe.

PE boy Gavin Rudolph won that first event that included a small group of vacationing Australians. Midget Farrelly put on an exhibition and really inspired all of us with his super fast surfing and fluid style. The wave of the competition had to be that of super hot Durban surfer Mike Esposito. While streaking across a North Beach wall he was dropped in on by a Hobie Cat but still managed to make the wave. The contest didn’t turn out to be the financial bonanza my Dad and his partners were counting on. By the next year my Dad had persuaded Peter Burness to take over the reins of the event and he and my Dad spent many hours plotting and planning what to do to take the contest to the next level. All the efforts were done for a simple purpose – to improve South African surfing. This was all a sideline venture for Peter who had his own successful timber business and all of his hard work along with that of my father was just a labor of love. Both of them just loved surfing and neither of them was in it for the money.

Like most white male South Africans in the apartheid era, I had to endure compulsory national service after high school graduation, and early in January 1973 I reported for duty. Through some wrangling from my Dad I was posted to Vortrekkerhoogte near Pretoria for 6 weeks of basic training and then to 83 TSD, an arsenal and tank and armored car storage facility near the Bluff, just outside of Durban. Most of the young servicemen were from Durban who had plotted to get home or were there through a lucky break. The PF’s, the Permanent Force members mostly hated us and tried to make our lives miserable. I started out sweeping an enormous storage shed with the world’s widest broom – I’d move the dust around from one side of the shed to the other, past boxes containing heavy barreled R1 rifles designed for automatic fire with beautiful wood grain stocks and mint condition Vickers machine guns from the First world War with the date stamp of 1916 clearly visible. Some of the sheds were filled with Panhards, fast reaction armored cars and other sheds contained Centurion tanks, the mainstay of the British and Israeli armored divisions. Every now and then someone would fire up a Centurion and run it around the perimeter road that ran around the base, inside the electrified fence, and barbed wire. The whole base would rattle, as the mobile earthquake would thunder around the perimeter. At each corner of the base were 4 cylindrical guard towers, about 20 feet up, reached by a metal ladder. Many a night I’d stand there standing guard with my R1 rifle and watch the world go by, dreaming of perfect waves while the Alsatian guard dogs roamed beneath me, baying like wolves looking for a kill. Sometimes I’d strategically place small stones on the steps to alert me in case the guard commander came to check up on me and curl up on the narrow concrete floor and fall asleep. Usually the stones would wake me as they fell and I’d jump to attention. One night I awoke to boots in the ribs. Sergeant Botes, the dog commander, skopping me and screaming Ek sal jou donner. Just another day in the life of a 17 year old trying to finish the army.

Having been in the military my Dad knew his way around the system and after a couple of bottles of scotch to the Sports Captain, I suddenly had a special pass to leave the base at 3pm every day to practice for the upcoming Gunston to be held at my local beach, the Bay of Plenty. The Bay Boys, a small group of local surfers had become some of the best surfers in the world under the guidance of my father who was like the Godfather of the beach. He’d stand on the wall with his binoculars never missing anyone’s wave and offering encouragement and advice to all the kids on the beach. It was a small tight crew and every session was as competitive as a contest. We all just pushed each other to the max and it helped that the Bay was one of the most consistent beach breaks in the world. We’d say – East or West Bay is Best. At low tight on the right swell you could get incredibly long right-hand tubes and at high tide there was a bowling left that peeled off perfectly into the rip current that ran out beside Patterson groin which formed the sand bar that created the break. The top surfers in no particular order were Mike Tomson, Jeremy Yeats, Kevin Todd, Mike Larmont, Bruce Jackson, Ricky Jordan and Paul Naude. There was also the young crew of Chris Cnutsen, my brother Paul Tomson, Bruce and Glen Milne, Wayne Shaw and Lista Sagnelli.

By 1973 the Gunston had become a big event and surfing had legitimate sports status. The real breakthrough had happened when Peter brought the cigarette manufacturer on board and suddenly surfing entered the big leagues. Gunston rammed surfing into the mainstream consciousness as the sport for men – men competing against each other for the ultimate wave and the ultimate prize – Gunston’s media spend and marketing dwarfed that of nearly every sporting event in the country. Lavishly produced contest short films showed in theaters across the country and surfing was everywhere across the country in billboards, magazine and newspaper ads.

In 1973 I had a dream run though the event and managed to make it through to the final, which was a closely matched affair. My biggest competition was from Wedge surfer Michael Esposito, one of the most naturally talented and explosive surfers in the world. People may have forgotten but back then the crowds on the beach for the event were huge. 30,000 people were the estimates, the largest crowd at the time for a surfing contest anywhere in the world.

I stood on the presentation stage with the 5 other finalists in front of thousands of people. I had my short army haircut and everywhere around me was hair and more hair – this was the 70’s! I was 17 years old but looked about 13. I was a boy amongst men up on the podium, nervous as hell. My father was in the judges’ tower about 20 yards away. He was a spotter, calling the colors of the surfers as they stood up to assist the judges in their scoring. He’d stand behind the judges and I knew he could see the scores so he had a good idea of who had won. It had been a close final and I looked questioningly up at him for some form of reassurance. He shook his head and gave me the Roman Emperor’s thumbs down. I was devastated until the results were announced a couple of minutes later – I’d won! He’d known all along but he wouldn’t let a great opportunity for a practical joke to slip by. Winning was important but not that important – he put life in perspective for me.

Winning my first and sweetest Gunston 500 in 1973

As the crowd began to filter away some surfers were disappointed with the result and thought Mike Esposito should have won. One of them scrawled Tomsons go home on the showers and confronted my Dad as he was walking off the beach with my cousin Mike who had also been a finalist. Words were exchanged, things got heated and bang my father gave the guy a flathand to the head. As he turned to retaliate, bang, Mike Tomson punched him to the ground. Not a pretty episode. It was all over the papers the next day with my Dad apologizing. I’d already left the beach but I could understand my Dad’s reaction. Sport was all about honor and his honor had been questioned and he’d lost his cool.

I went on to win five more Gunstons and today, over 30 years later, they have all blended together into one event, inextricably linked with my Father who loved surfing as much as I did and who was there with me for every win. I really miss him every day. The life force glowed from him like a fire. I got a phone call while competing in Australia in 1981 that he was gone. No warning, just my mom on the other end saying how sorry she was. A son measures his own mortality by his parents. I was young, strong, and invincible, never ever contemplating death. I’d phone him after every event, often telling him I hadn’t done so good and then busting him up with the news that I’d won. I loved to play the same joke on him that he played on me at that first Gunston, the first big win of my life. He loved me to win and I loved to tell him and after he died contests were just never as fun for me again.

Hawaii 1975 – Opening for the Duke Kahanamoku Classic Contest in Hawaii

I’ve been surfing now for over 54 years; I got stoked on my first wave and that feeling has kept me going back for more ever since. I never surfed for the victories or the money or the fame, although all of it was greatly appreciated. Over the years I have helped surfers become recognized as legitimate athletes, assisted in the creation of a pro tour and participated in the growth of a multi billion-dollar surfing industry. I am proud of my involvement and contribution to the sport of surfing and I’m proud to be inextricably linked with the event my Dad started. Today it is called the Ballito Bay Pro but it is part of a tradition created by my Dad, by the best man I’ve known and it is now the longest running pro surfing contest in the world.

I still watch all the big events via the web and still take a keen interest in what is happening in the world of pro surfing. I might not know the names of all the latest hotshots and I might sometimes get confused between a slob, a mute and a lien air but I’m still excited to watch young surfers put it all on the line for a dream. When I saw South African Jordy Smith take his first big win in the Ballito Pro a few years back, under the watchful eye of his Dad Graham, I thought back to that first win of mine in the same event 4 decades years earlier watched over by my Dad too. My Dad helped make my dream come true and it was great to see history repeating itself, in the same contest, in a different era. I think a lot about my Dad today and what he did for me – helping his son make his dream come true because that’s just what Dads are supposed to do.

The post For Father’s Day… appeared first on Shaun Tomson | World Champion Surfer, Keynote Speaker & Author.

 JP was on a motor bike when a driver jumped a stop street and smashed into him – he was left for dead and lost his leg.

Dries was a powerhouse of muscle, one of South Africa’s most promising rugby players when a truck driver lost control and pushed his car into a ravine – he broke his spine and is paralyzed from the waist down.

Gallo from Spain is totally blind in both eyes, gets called into waves by a friend, and surfs by feeling the energy of the wave he is riding.

Chris had his leg torn off by a tiger shark in Hawaii, and Bruno is paralyzed below his waist – he eventually won the unassisted prone surfing division and is now World Champion. In his previous life he was a boat captain taking surfers on exotic trips around the islands of Sumatra. He lived an idyllic life, based in a tree house on the tranquil island of Bali. He came back to his homeland of South Africa and en route to the airport was attacked by four men in another car, waving guns, shouting at him to pull over. When he wouldn’t stop they filled the car with bullets, and he rolled the car trying to escape. After the crash the gangsters returned and while trying to drag him out of the car to rob him, the car toppled over and broke his back. He was left for dead and discovered a few hours later.

Watching all these men surf was a truly inspiring experience.  They had travelled from across the world to challenge themselves, to push against their own limits, riding and being liberated by the ocean’s energy. What impacted me deeply was their optimism, their exuberance, their love for life and the fact that each of them had made the choice to have a positive life by having a positive attitude. They had adapted their attitude to their circumstances.

In his best selling book “Man’s Search for Meaning,” holocaust survivor and pioneering psychiatrist Viktor Frankl wrote of attitude in relation to his experiences in the Nazi death camp Auschwitz: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms: to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Each and every one of us has lived through times of heartbreak and despair, and I have come to a hard understanding of certain truths:

We all live in a challenging sea, and our attitude towards those challenges defines who we are, and how we live our lives. Our attitude is our fundamental choice in life – positive or negative, hopeful or despairing, positive or optimistic. We have limited control over our circumstances, however we have absolute control over our attitude.

• Our attitude about the present defines our future.
• Our attitude about the future defines the present.
• Our attitude defines how we see the world and how the world sees us.
• Our attitude is the power that propels us on a journey from where we are, to where we want to be.
• Our attitude is the light that can show us the way out darkness.

It is a fundamental choice for all of us.

• Good or bad?
• Positive or negative?
• Optimistic or pessimistic?
• Hopeful or despairing?

It is a simple choice.

It is a fundamental choice to be made by everyone on this planet and this choice can change us and change our lives and change the world all around us.

There is a lot of goodness in this world and we all we all have this light inside of us.

And this light shines through to the world and people around us, in our attitude.

It is up to each and every one of us whether we wish to shine this light on the road ahead and illuminate the way forward, towards a better future, for all.

I’d like us all to consider the simple question – What is your attitude?

It is an answer, a choice without any shades of grey, without nuance, without complexity.

Positive or negative, optimistic or pessimistic.

Do I choose to build my attitude and the attitude of those around me with the light of hope or the darkness of despair?

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As a huge fan of pro surfing, the first event of the year is a favourite – there’s as much pressure on each competitor as if it were the end of the year with the world title on the line and it is good to see who has stepped up their game in the off-season. How the top guys perform out of the gate tells a lot about who will be on top at the end of the season. Generally the winner of the tour will come from the four who make the semis – Adriano, Josh, Jordy and Taj – so I’m going to make my selection from that quartet plus Kelly and Joel. A great start usually translates into a great finish as confidence is like a snowball rolling down the mountain, building in power.

So who to pick here? Kelly had a concentration lapse and didn’t make the semi but his surfing is as fast, creative and lethal as ever – sharp, focused and tight with an overwhelming mental advantage. His complex tuberides in the first round and blazing, technically-perfect cutbacks were almost beyond mortal comprehension. A win at Bells would most probably give him the enthusiasm to have a full go at the title, but at the moment his motivation is a question mark.

Joel had a horrific pressure melt down against Jordy – he peaked early against Julian and in that heat his surfing was sublime – he has elevated his game and got his air mojo going but he still makes it look all too effortless. His surfing on a big wall can give you chicken skin and his level of perfection has and always will be underscored but here’s hoping he never changes his fundamental approach of beautiful technical precision.

Adriano could have easily won the event on his final wave but the judges decided that Taj was the better surfer – maybe not as explosive, but stylistically superior. Adriano has made a quantum leap in his creative air attack but I think he’s still millimetres behind in flow and style so he’ll be just out of reach.

Josh has a few too many catchy rail changes. His manoeuvres are amazing and exciting but sometimes the whole wave face seems just a speedy transition for the ramp down the line.

Taj has lifted his game and at 33 is laying down some of his most innovative manoeuvres ever and longer, more area-covering carves. He is getting way more thrust off that low, searing bottom turn. His heat against Dane was as good as the Dane/Parko heat of a few years back and definitely the heat of the event. However, the spectre of expectation hangs darkly over Taj and its shadow will deepen as the season continues and the pressure mounts. I would love to see him take the title and hope he can maintain his confidence and keep his eyes on the next ride and not the destination.

I think an outsider will win this year. There is one currently flying stealth and deadly, way below the media radar and the pressure of great expectations.

Three years ago I chatted to Jordy Smith and wrote an article about him called “Man on Fire” when he was the hottest commodity in the world – things sure have changed and during the Quik Pro he wasn’t even mentioned as a contender in any of the media or even touted highly in his heats. In fact he has gone from Man on Fire to the invisible man in six months. Back then I wrote:

However Jordy is impatient – even when you speak to him he wants to be somewhere else – there are so many waves to catch, so many deals to do, so many contests to win and so many new lines to carve. But the waves will be there tomorrow and so will his future, so maybe he should take a breath and look around and slow down because it is not always the swiftest that wins the race. When he eventually figures out all the minutiae of competition you can carve this prediction in stone– watch out and take cover because he is going to burn things down.[/note]

Jordy had some interesting and cogent comments about his surfing at that time: “In the water I don’t like to think about things too much – I like to try whatever is spur of the moment. Whatever my mind creates, I’m just going to try it. When you think about your manoeuvres too much, it makes it too technical – you have to make it more natural. Don’t force it, just let it happen.”

Spur-of-the-moment creativity is where the big points are coming from today – not just an explosively grand manoeuvre, but an unexpected, explosively grand manoeuvre. Obviously that has to be backed up by awesome and fluid carves on the face. Jordy has all the ingredients right now, along with competition savvy and the fact that he flying pressure-free under the radar. The publicity glare has just moved elsewhere and I think Jordy is in the shadows for now – and that invisibility suits him just fine. He seems to be just cruising in his heats, letting it flow and following his own advice. Don’t force it, just let it happen. He is finally fitting into his skin that he was exploding out of last year. He’s fit, focused and motivated – while his team mate John John’s star has shone brightly over the last few months Jordy’s has dimmed. There is a massive extra incentive for him to do well – both from a financial and reputation perspective – it’s no fun to be last year’s prodigy.

I asked him post-Snapper how he is feeling about the year ahead: ”I’m feeling really good and free. It’s the best I’ve felt in years. Can’t wait for the next one.”

It has taken Jordy three years to figure things out but it seems he now has the pieces in place. Power, creativity, rhythm and speed. Freedom, fitness and enthusiasm. Finally following no one else’s advice but his own. Don’t force it, just let it happen.

The post The Title appeared first on Shaun Tomson | World Champion Surfer, Keynote Speaker & Author.

I strongly believe that surfing can teach us powerful lessons if we look beyond the next wave. We all live in a challenging sea and our attitude towards those challenges defines who we are, and how we live our lives. Our attitude about the present defines our future.

Our attitude about the future defines the present. Our attitude defines how we see the world and how the world sees us. Our attitude is the light that can show us the way on a journey from where we are, to where we want to be. It is a fundamental choice for all of us.

Positive or negative. Optimism or pessimism. Hope or despair. Light or Darkness. It is a simple choice. It is a choice to be made by everyone in this room and this choice can change us and change our lives and change the world all around us.

This is a story of a journey, my journey – a story of despair and hope, a journey from heartbreak to happiness, a journey from the dark into the light. For sixteen years through the 1970s and 1980s I was a professional surfer. I actually made my living by going surfing and I was pretty good at it too. It actually became a career.

Coming from a Jewish family, I was always going to go down the road of being a professional – doctor, lawyer – professional surfer wasn’t quite part of the plan. Like many of my friends from university I also became a specialist; my specialty was tube riding. It represents the absolute essence of surfing – a feeling of pure exhilaration and freedom.

Time is expanded; reality unfolds in slow motion. The past is just behind you, the present is right between your feet, racing beneath your board, and the future is just ahead, just out of reach and you are riding for the light, always riding for the light.

During my long pro career I managed to win nineteen pro events and become World Champion. I retired from pro surfing at the end of 1989. I spent a number of years in my homeland of South Africa before moving with my wife Carla and son Mathew to Santa Barbara.

My favorite spot along the California coast is Hammonds Reef, a secluded beach about a mile away from where I live. It was home to the Chumash people hundreds of years ago. My son Mathew and I used to love going surfing there and together we had some great days. In the water sometimes he’d come up to me, sit close and sling his arm around my shoulder while we waited for a wave. It is a lovely beach, a small little bay, a peaceful refuge from the business of life.

The whole atmosphere at Hammonds is calming. One winter morning Matthew and I went down to check the surf – there was a bench where we’d sit together and check out the action and we’d stash our surfboard wax at a little spot in the bushes that grew down to the cobblestones surrounding the beach. On this particular day there was no surf so Mathew said, “Let’s go and visit the memorial.” In front of Hammonds, bordered by expensive homes is a beautiful meadow, and at the eastern edge of the meadow is a memorial erected by the Chumash and decorated with dolphin figurines.

So we walked along the path to the meadow and went to the Memorial. At the base of the memorial people had left shells, bits of driftwood, pictures and other offerings. On the memorial is a profound and powerful inscription: The sacredness of the land lies in the mind of its people.

This land is dedicated to the spirit and memory of the ancestors and their children. We stood there for a few minutes absorbing the atmosphere. The Chumash had a settlement right here hundreds of years ago living off the land and the sea. Surrounded by high-end homes and our ultra modern society there was a feeling of history, a connection to the past and to the land.

We walked back down to the beach together. I could see that a plan was percolating in Mathew’s head. Come on Dada, help me. On the stretch of beach, just the two of us, no one else around, he started to build this huge circle of stones. We made one large circle and inside that circle we made a second circle, dragging the stones around the beach. Inside that second circle we then made a third circle. So finally we had three concentric circles of cobblestones on the beach.

Then Matthew made a pathway through the three circles and inside the innermost circle he dropped two large flat stones – one was to be a seat for me, and another a seat for him. He then scampered off down the beach and came back with a large stick. On top the top of the stick he had tied some kelp and attached a feather.

He had me sit down in the center of the three circles on my rock, and he sat directly across from me on his. “What this is, is a sacred story circle, Dada,” he explained while holding a stick. “And thisis the sacred story stick. If you are holding the stick you can tell a story and when you are finished you give me the stick and I’ll tell you a story.”

We sat down inside this circle of stones on the two seats on an empty beach at Hammonds and told each other stories. It was just the two of us in our own world, inside the sacred story circle. It was a magical, magical moment.

In 2006 life was good for the Tomsons My wife and I had sold our apparel company Solitude that we started in 1998 to Oxford, a publicly traded company on the NYSE. They had set up a new design studio for us in Montecito and put us on a 3-year contract.

At the time Mathew was having some challenges at school and we decided to have Mathew reconnect with our homeland and attend my old School for a few months. Carla and Mathew made the long trip together and within a month he was doing great, excelling at my old school – I was so proud of him. On the 24th of April 2006 at 9am I phoned him. Mathew picked up the phone.

Carla and I had a 3 way business conference call scheduled with the headquarters in New York. I called in to South Africa and Mathew picked up the phone right away – it felt like he was sitting next to me.Hey, Dada, I want to read you something. He then read me a beautiful essay. I asked him who wrote it. I did, Dada – he was so proud of it. He captured the essence of the surfing experience along with a depth of spirituality.

Four words really stuck with me: The light shines ahead Carla jumped on the line and we had to start the call. I love you Dada, I love you too, Mathew. A Japanese film crew came and picked me up – they had flown out to interview me and wanted some pictures.

Of course, I took them down to Hammonds. It was a magnificent Spring Day and they interviewed me on the beach I looked out to the ocean and something just didn’t feel right – it is too perfect, I thought. Walking back on the path I had a profound feeling of unease. 

Something felt very, very wrong. I stopped under a large Eucalyptus tree that lines the trail and the interviewer stopped with me. “There is nothing more important than a positive attitude,” I said to him. The words just popped into my head. Those words formed a core belief, but the words sounded loud and forced to me. We got in the car and my cell phone rang. It was Carla.

Mathew was dead. How is that possible? I had just been speaking to him. Carla was destroyed. I was destroyed. How is that possible? He was playing a risky game that had deadly consequences. Our lives were shattered in a moment. My friends rallied, got me a passport and ticket and put me on a plane. It was a harrowing trip back to South Africa – I was in a state of disbelief and my only thought was to save my wife. My beautiful son was gone and I knew I was close to losing my wife as well.

On my arrival, Carla had to be admitted to a psych care ward and I didn’t think she was going to make it. During her second week in the hospital a friend came to visit. Our friend said, “I have a message from Mathew.”

One bolt of lightning hit the hospital, one clap of thunder, out of a cloudless sky. I have a message from Mathew. He said he made a mistake and wants you to forgive him – what he did was an accident. One bolt of lightning. Did it make it easier to accept?  

No. But it did give a connection to the after life, that our life on earth is not all we have. Knowing that Mathew was still with us in spirit gave us both the strength to move forward and that moment of light was a turning point.

I reread the essay Mathew had read to me on the day he died. The light shines ahead. The light shines ahead. His words of hope resonated deeply with me and do so every day. Life was very hard but each day made the pain a little less severe and my wife and I grew closer.

It was like two trees had fallen in a storm and in the process of falling, toppled against one other and stayed up and then grew together, ever closer. Through all the pain, we did have that hope that one day we would be a family again.

We missed being a family On the 25^th of August we received a phone call out of the blue that would change our lives. A baby boy had been born just before midnight the previous day. Were we interested in adopting? We both immediately said yes.

The baby was born a month premature – the date of birth was supposed to have been 25^th September. The 25^th of September!? That was Mathew’s birthday. Carla said, “This is our baby, that is a sign from God.” We got another call back immediately telling us that she had planned to call the baby Mathew. We knew the baby had to be ours now!

The next morning she made her decision and we had our baby. We drove up to the hospital immediately in a state of delirious happiness, the light shining ahead of us. We arrived at the hospital and were told to proceed directly to the nursery before meeting the woman who would share the precious gift of her child. We went up to her room and walked in and met her for the first time and looked at her lying on her bed like an angel, because that’s what she was.

She was our angel, come to share a gift from God. I looked at her, and we all hugged together and all felt right with our lives – we were surrounded by this incredible warmth and emotion. She asked if our baby was beautiful and we said he was and we thanked her for her trust and the amazing gift of our child, for sharing with us what was most precious to her.

I looked at her lying on the bed and I felt like I was looking at my wife’s twin sister – the resemblance was uncanny and quite took my breath away and Carla’s as well. We all hugged and left. She asked us the baby’s name, because she wanted him to be born with our name. “We like Luke,” we said. “It just feels right.” That day, on the drive home Carla and I were overjoyed.  

Let’s check what Luke means. Mathew’s name meant “Gift from God.” Luke’s name means: “Light or Bringer of Light.” Luke is the bringer of light. He has brought the light to us again just like Mathew wrote. The light shines ahead. The light shines ahead. My wife and I have been blessed with Luke.

We have found our way though the darkness and into the light. And my son’s words helped me survive. There is a lot of goodness in this world. There is a lot of goodness all around us, and we all have this light inside of us.  And this light shines through to the world and people around us, in our attitude. It is up to each and every one of us whether we wish to shine this light on the road ahead and illuminate the way forward, towards a better future, for all of us.

I’d like us all to consider the simple question: What is your attitude?

It is an answer, a choice without any shades of grey, without nuance, without complexity. Light or darkness. Positive or negative.

This I know.

Shaun Tomson is an ambassador for The Surfrider Foundation and a member of TheInertia.com’s Advisory Board. He recently developed a new surfboard with Al Merrick called The Warp, released an iPhone app called Surf Creatures, and enjoys contributing to inspiring projects.

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A gentleman’s chat: ESPN interview with Shaun Tomson

By Jon Coen
ESPN Action Sports

We all have our heroes in surfing. But sometimes surfing in general needs to put its best foot forward to the rest of the world.

That’s where a guy like Shaun Tomson comes in handy. Not only is Tomson a World Champion, environmentalist, an author (“The Surfer’s Code”), a business school graduate, a father, a documentarian (“Bustin’ Down the Door”), a gentleman, a creator of smartphone applications, tube riding pioneer and a motivational speaker, but he’s now designed a surfboard that might be a game changer for a growing demographic.

Most recently, Tomson was the keynote speaker at the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors Inauguration Ceremony and was in Washington D.C., presenting at the Smithsonian Institute last week. I was fortunate enough to speak with Tomson again recently, and we discussed his inspirations, his new board with Channel Islands and the recent addition to his family.

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