If there’s a heaven, Uncle John, your last 8000 steps were its stairway

July 7, 2026 — 7:30pm

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On the day of the stroke that ended his life, my uncle walked 8000 steps. He was 96.

The app on his phone recorded this trek, not that it surprised his nine children, 19 grandchildren (and nor will it his three great-grandchildren when they’re old enough). Well into his 90s, Dr John Egan had regularly walked to Manly from his flat in Mosman, or to St Patrick’s in the CBD, just to attend Mass. In the past few years, he settled for the relative amble to Mass at his local, Mosman’s Sacred Heart Church, and that daily pilgrimage accounted for most of his last 8000 steps.

We farewelled John Egan at Sacred Heart on Thursday. At the funeral service, they played a video of him pounding away on a cross-trainer at Balmoral Beach, the day before his stroke.

Sloths among us might say it was all the exercise that finished him. I’d say we should all stride towards such a kind exit. John Egan certainly earned it, as his daughters Meg and Fiona detailed in the eulogy.

Born in 1929, a Great Depression baby, John would come to recall that the last thing his........

© Brisbane Times