“A Vadim-sized hole in our hearts”: Farewell to Senior Constable Vadim De Waart-Hottart

At the head of the Victoria Police Academy chapel, a statue of Batman sat alongside the four medals belonging to a man taken much too soon; a man who idolised Batman, because he was a hero. Vadim was, too.

Senior Constable Vadim De Waart-Hottart was farewelled by his family, friends, colleagues and community in a packed-out chapel that housed over 3,000 people. Both on home soil, and across the world, that same number of people tuned in to pay their respects over a live broadcast.

There was love, and rage at the senselessness. There was the sound of a brother, a mother, and a friend struggling to describe the shape of a young man now gone.

Vadim was killed in the line of duty in Porepunkah last week. He put on the badge, and he paid the price that too many before him have. And yet, as his former housemate and colleague Tali Walker-Davidson reminded us, Vadim lived with a fullness most never achieve.

“He was the gift that kept on giving… he loved deeply… he always knew how to live with his whole heart,” Tali said, a tribute that captured Vadim’s boundless energy and generosity.

From his mother, words carried by Jeremy: “Vadim is everywhere now in the ether, in the divine, in the light. He will live among us as a soft breeze on our cheek, an unexpected pure white butterfly hovering over my head.”

It is a beautiful thought, but one that does little to close what Tali described as “a Vadim-sized hole in our hearts.”

The uniforms were there in their hundreds. Rows of solemn faces, medals gleaming, shoulders squared against the weight of grief. But as Chief Commissioner Mike Bush told a packed chapel, Vadim was more than the uniform.

“Thank you for bringing Vadim to us. Nothing will compensate for this loss. He was a collector and a connector of people, who loved life and was taken too soon.

You can be assured, we will remember you.”

Mike’s words spoke to what many in the force know but too rarely say: the badge doesn’t weigh much until you put it on. Behind it are men and women who bleed, who laugh, who love. Vadim was one of them.

The service was full of moments that would break even the hardest heart. The pipe band’s lament. The slow salute of his colleagues. The coffin draped in the Australian flag, carried by those who knew him best.

And above it all, the memories of a young man who was “so Vadim”; always giving, always thoughtful, always living at full tilt.

There are no tidy endings here. Just a family, a force, and a community left to carry the absence.

Vadim De Waart-Hottart leaves behind his mother, his siblings, his colleagues, and countless friends all over the world. He also leaves behind a reminder that courage comes at a cost, and that every police member who steps into the blue takes that risk on behalf of us all.

As the mourners left the Academy, the question lingered: how do you navigate life without him?

The answer, for now, is that you don’t. You remember him. You carry him. And you try, somehow, to live with your whole heart, just as he did.

And if on your next walk in the spring Melbourne sun you happen to come across a white butterfly, remember to smile.

Vadim always did.