AFL finals 2015: From Nic Naitanui's grief comes his 'driving force'

He thought he knew the meaning of pain, but has a new reference point for that now.

A broken heart hurts like no ailment he has had before.

As he drives a familiar 45-minute journey between his home and football club, the plate-sized eyes of this extraordinary 25-year-old footballer fill up again. Several times over the last month Naitanui has thought he must be all cried out; surely. Fresh tears continue to present, however, as irrefutable proof he's not there yet.

While mourning the recent, sudden loss of his mother Atetha, Naitanui is also feeling new sorrow the long-time absence of his father. Bola Naitanui died from cancer when his twin sons, Nic and Mark, were just two.

In this mental fog, Nic Naitanui feels drawn to do two things: pray and play.

He prays that his mum is at peace after her life was cut short by diabetes-related illness five weeks ago. He plays, after missing two games, because something deep inside tells him his mother simply would have insisted on it.

In the first AFL final of 2015 on Friday night, Naitanui stands to be nothing short of pivotal. But it is a horribly stark fact that Atetha was due back in Perth now to enjoy the West Coast Eagles' campaign and her son's part in it. She'd lived in Australia for 25 years, working in refuges for women, youth and the homeless, before returning to village life in her Fijian homeland 18 months ago to be closer to her daughter, grandchildren and broader family.

Instead of welcoming a special visitor this September, the Naitanui twins, their girlfriends and West Coast's integrity officer, Peter Staples, had ventured abroad the last time the Eagles hosted Hawthorn.

"That trip was the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life," Naitanui says of a journey that involved two flights and a three-and-a-half hour drive to Suvavou. "The pain at that time was just something I've never felt before."

The travelling party knew, by then, that Atetha had taken her last breath, which only made the trip more excruciating.

If only he'd had longer to talk on the phone that Thursday before she passed away on the Friday. If only they could have hugged one last time before his sister phoned from Fiji with news that – in Naitanui's words – caused him to feel "my whole world just stopped".

"Mum, on the Thursday, was saying things from the hospital like 'everything's fine. I'm fine. Don't worry about me, just worry about your footy. I don't want to distract you'," Naitanui reflects quietly, back in the comparative comfort of a meeting room at his football club.

"But I think deep down she probably knew that she wasn't as well as what she said she was that day. It was only a brief conversation, too. You look back and think I wish I could have spoken for hours. There's a lot of things I wanted to ask and say to my mum."

Respecting Fijian traditions, and a strong Methodist faith, Mark and Nic were charged with considerable responsibility in Suvavou, where the footballer says there is no such thing as a funeral director or house as they're known in Australia.

The farewell process commenced with Naitanui presenting a whale's tooth to the village chief, and this set in train a week of intimate activity to mark the passing.

For eight nights, Naitanui went virtually sleepless – "I reckon I didn't stop crying for that whole week in Fiji," he recalls.

Once the burial was complete, the Naitanui brothers made a customary pledge, to honour the departed, of giving up something of note for 100 days. Nic is forgoing coffee, Mark is abstaining from alcohol.

In this acute period of grieving the 2012 All Australian player says he genuinely did not know if footy would figure again in a life feeling suddenly devoid of vital co-ordinates.

"Honestly, once it happened, I couldn't even think about playing footy again," he says.

But after the longest week of his life, Naitanui found clarity about his immediate future when alone one day in the village.

"Coming back was about understanding what my purpose was, and to what my mum always said, and that would be to be happy, and play footy," he says.

Naturally, the emotional ups and downs have not subsided with the location change. Naitanui describes an unpredictable, living-dead type sensation that anyone who has experienced major trauma never forgets.

"I've found myself over recent weeks watching TV but not really watching TV," he says. "And I guess the same has happened at the footy club at times. You're there but you're not really there.

"If I was sitting here talking to you a month ago it would have been about the excitement of finals coming up, how I've struggled with injuries the last few years but have now had a good run at it …that there's the excitement of the two WA sides being in it, and how the town is abuzz. All that's happening and I can see it but I can't feel it, if you know what I mean."

Naitanui has discussed these feelings with his coach, Adam Simpson, and club CEO Trevor Nisbett. Both have given him indefinite licence to be present or absent from the club, and to play or withdraw, on any given day.

"Simmo's viewpoint was the same as Trevor Nisbett's: go and do what your family needs to do, and don't worry about footy. Footy can wait," Naitanui says.

He is receiving constant support from the Eagles' welfare boss, Ian Miller, and Staples, the club representative who proved an invaluable help in Fiji.

Naitanui is finding that the more he shares, verbally, the better it feels. He was moved to tears when the AFL Players Association sent a mass delivery of soup to his home and was deeply touched, last Friday, when a letter from Geelong's Tom Hawkins, who lost his mother earlier this year, arrived.

"It said that he was feeling for me, first and foremost, and just a bit about how he grieved and his experience," Naitanui says. "Most guys will text you, but to write that out in a letter is a big thing."

After missing two matches, Naitanui resumed playing in round 21, against the Western Bulldogs. Simpson checked in privately repeatedly, and as late as on game day, to be certain he was up to it.

"I said to him, there's a lot of people watching at home in Fiji. My uncles back in the village were telling me that as much as they wanted me to stay, that I needed to go back and make our village proud, and make my mum proud. They said 'find it in yourself to go out and do it'."

When he kicked a goal against the Dogs, Naitanui pointed skyward. "I would not be able to tell you a single thing that happened in that match, apart from that goal," he says. "I was lucky I didn't break down when that happened. It was just a wave of emotion that fell upon me."

On the eve of his sixth final, Naitanui is finding something from a reserve he didn't know he had. West Coast's steamrolling of St Kilda six days ago contained compelling evidence of how powerful that can be. Naitanui not only produced several breathtaking moments in that match, he was best afield.

In losing his greatest fan, who watched him play from Fiji right until the end, the second pick of the 2008 draft laments that he has also lost his toughest marker.

"Mum's favourite player was Dean Cox, so it was hard pleasing her," Naitanui says, smiling.

"She'd ask me 'why can't you get 25 touches like Coxy does? Or take 20 marks?'"

The football feats Naitanui achieves in coming weeks have the potential to separate his side from the rest. Naitanui remains motivated by a club and a cup but is being propelled by the memory of a woman.

"Mum was a servant of God," he says. "She was very powerful and she wasn't afraid of anything. She'd want me to be doing this and making her proud. I think that will be my driving force. Now, and for the rest of my career."