It’s been close to 15 years since I left Australia, taking a Garuda flight through Jakarta and Singapore to Amsterdam on a journey sparked by love at first sight.

Meeting Gerda at Uluru in the Australian outback just a few months previously had changed my life and I was full of hope and bravado. A chance encounter with a Dutch backpacker had propelled me towards Europe and when I landed at Schiphol, where she met me among the bustling crowd, it still felt like a dream.

She was blonde, smiling and gorgeous and the winter mist shrouded Amsterdam in a mystical white light. I didn’t know what to expect, but it was love and I was ready for anything and as our train cut through the morning, the green countryside of the Netherlands revealed itself to me with the sun breaking through the clouds as we travelled to her home.

A decade and a half later and we’re back in Australia, bringing three children with us on a new adventure.

So much time has passed that the country of my birth has itself become like a dream. It is strangely familiar, welcoming and yet also excitingly unknown. I feel like someone new, but at the same time unchanged.

The winter light here is different, clearer than that misty Amsterdam morning when the neon-lit billboards on the airport plaza cut through the fog like beacons. The light reminds me of times old, of crisp winters from my past and it reassures and welcomes me home, like an old friend. It’s been an incredible journey.

I feel lucky, excited and nostalgic, but sad also for the family and friends I left behind in the Netherlands. When I started out from Melbourne so many years ago I was flying on passion and instinct. Gerda was my love and I was convinced that it was forever, accepting we’d make her home ours with little thought given to the length of time I might spend away from Australia or the exhilaration and anguish that absence might entail.

I left Melbourne as a young man and I return now much older, one could even describe me as middle aged (if I’m really honest!) and a new journey starts. We have rented out our home in the Netherlands, found a new house in Australia and I have work here. How long will we stay? It is hard to say. But we’re here now and it feels decidedly right, like a fresh moment of freedom.

I don’t want it to be the end of the journey, but the start of another one. There are still so many things to do, learn and experience and I want to show Gerda and our children the rugged grandeur and spoils of the land of my birth. It’s a breathtaking country and my Australian family in Albury and Melbourne is over the moon to have us home.

We left Amsterdam on flight MH17, bound for Kuala Lumpur on July 7. Ten days later, that same flight was blasted out of the sky, taking 298 innocent lives with it with devastating rage.

On that flight was Antoine van Veldhuizen, my friend, mentor and colleague from Expatica.com. He was travelling with his wife and two boys and their grandmother. 

It could so easily have been my family and I. It could have been anyone, but life and death is random. Unpredictable. Who knows when our time is up?

My work at Expatica had taught me the Dutch language, introduced the Netherlands to me and drilled me in writing Dutch news. It was the grounding I needed in my adopted country and my mentor placed extraordinary trust in my work.

I am forever grateful for that and the six years I worked alongside him in Amsterdam and Haarlem.

The shock of his passing is boiling inside me and in the terrible sadness of mourning, I look again at the photo Gerda took of us on our July 7 flight and I shudder to think how that could have been the last image our families would have received. 

The selfie of a Dutch mother and son on that fateful flight is likewise haunting. They looked excited and innocent, now lost in the blind fury of war.

But we made it home safe, far from the battleground and I sigh with relief for the excitement I feel. 

Conversely, I am burning up inside for those who have been taken from us and demand justice for their murder.

I take the time now to look upon the life I have, the chances I’ve had, the near misses I’ve survived, my beautiful wife and our three amazing children and I thank whatever mystical force there is that has lead us here. Yes, I am one of the lucky ones.

I’ve dreamed and worked hard in the past 15 years to make our life in the Netherlands as wonderful as it was and still I want more, this time on the other side of the world.

I want to enjoy and take the time now to relax and spend the time that I’ve missed with friends and family and the fun I can share with my children. We have much to do, a new country to explore.

I am devastated for my friend’s family and I cry for my Netherlands and Australia, both of them now in mourning. War is cruel. Death is unkind and I owe it to my friend to embrace the life we have gained.