After his seven-year-old son died in New York during COVID lockdown, Duncan Schieb had to perform CPR on a child he could not save. His marriage fractured under the weight of grief, blame and guilt. Now a single father of four, he has rebuilt his life and discovered what actually helps when everything falls apart.
⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses addiction & recovery and grief & loss, which some listeners may find distressing.
If you need support, you’re not alone. Help is available:
• SMART Recovery Australia (addiction): smartrecoveryaustralia.com.au
• ReachOut: au.reachout.com
• Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au
• GriefLine: 1300 845 745 · griefline.org.au
When Duncan Schieb’s identical twin son Lachlan died suddenly in February 2020, he was a single father of four living in a small New York apartment. A week later, the city locked down. He performed CPR on his dead son and could not revive him. He and his family were trapped inside, grieving with no access to counselling, watching refrigerated trucks stack bodies outside their window, and unable to leave the country for nearly a year. They did not know why Lachlan died for twelve months. The weight of that unknowing, combined with the isolation of lockdown and the impossible guilt of being unable to save his child, fractured his marriage. Duncan names what no one talks about: the compound emotions of blame, guilt, and shame that destroy relationships after child loss, especially when there is no explanation and no support. Five years on, Duncan has rebuilt his life in Australia as a single parent. He has learned that grief does not follow a timeline, that it ambushes you on an ordinary street without warning, and that it demands specific, ongoing support.
🕒 CHAPTERS:
00:00 Lachlan died in February 2020
01:58 Growing up in Cannamble
04:36 His father’s single piece of advice
11:35 Three decades chasing opportunities
22:33 Finding purpose in bereaved children’s work
28:22 Moving home as a single parent
31:10 Locked down with grief and no counselling
37:34 The guilt and the knowing
42:34 Blame, guilt, and shame
50:24 Forgiveness first, kindness always
56:34 Building bereavement care from nothing
1:06:27 What matters most now
👍 New here? Subscribe for a new story of resilience every fortnight: https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes?sub_confirmation=1
📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED:
National Centre for Childhood Grief: childhoodgrief.org.au
Lifeline Australia: 13 11 14
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Welcome.
We’re glad you found your way here.
Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most.
Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object’s history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another.
This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn’t go to plan.
Here you’ll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens:
• Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham
• Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale
• Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova
• From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd
• Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience
• Pride in Stories, hosted by John Dwyer
Every story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected.
Whether you’re navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you’re welcome here.
New episodes are released fortnightly across our series.
If you’d like to help us keep these stories freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate
Thank you for being part of this community.
We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
CONNECT WITH US
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🌐 https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au
▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes
📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes
📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes
💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes
#KintsugiHeroes #LivedExperience #ResiliencePodcast #goldenjoinery #rebuilding #grief #bereavement #childloss #singleparenting #mentalhealth #trauma #forgiveness