It’s a day she has been dreading — the day her darling son, Luke, was to have become a teenager.

For the freckle-faced class clown, the hands of time stopped at the age of 11.

A boy robbed of the chance to become a man by his own father.

But rather than sink away from the world today, his shattered mum will do what she does best.

She will get out of bed, make a licorice tea, gather her resolve, and take another big step towards helping victims of domestic abuse — by launching a new campaign in Luke’s name.

NEVER ALONE: Rosie Batty’s campaign to stop domestic violence

ROSIE’S BIRTHDAY LETTER: A day no mother should have to go through

In just 16 months, the courageous mum from Tyabb has taken on a celebrity-like stature around the country, a stature further boosted in January when she was named Australian of the Year.

Strangers want to touch her, hug her, take selfies with her, and even get her autograph, as if some of her remarkable strength will magically rub off on them.

Take a recent lunch in Southbank, where she was interviewed by yachtsman John Bertrand to rousing applause.

Batty had barely returned to her seat for dessert when a queue formed: CEOs, students and businessmen clamoured for her attention as she tried to spoon up chocolate torte.

As always, the warm 53-year-old with the English Midlands accent was accommodating and charming.

But the constant spotlight has been overwhelming for a woman who is still dealing with the worst moment in her life — a moment that for most of us is unimaginable.

She admits, looking guilty, that she slips away from some events before the night is over, needing to regroup after yet another deep dive into her personal pain.

In recent times, the appellation “grieving mum” has been replaced with “domestic violence campaigner”.

BUT for Batty, the grief hasn’t abated. It’s an ever-present prickle behind her eyes or choking in her throat.

Only on rare occasions does she lose her daily battle to suppress it in public.

She recalls breaking down before a recent event, at a time when Luke’s pet dog, Lilly, was fighting for her life.

“I’d been talking at a conference in the city, and I was going to a Rotary event. But I was struggling emotionally, and very tired,” she says.

“My dog wasn’t going well; I was just distraught. She was having complications from surgery, and wasn’t recovering in the same way she should’ve been. I just went ‘I can’t do it tonight’.

“At that point, my schedule was incredibly intense, and I was overtired. I had been coping well enough until this thing happened with my dog and I couldn’t stop crying. When I started, I couldn’t stop.

“Not many people have ever seen me vulnerable — even before Luke.”

Batty’s composure and grace in the face of unthinkable tragedy has been an inspiration and, for some, almost incredible.

She says the public has expectations of how people should grieve, but grief is not prescriptive.

“We expect people to grieve quietly, and we don’t always expect anger and frustration and raised voices and shouting and screaming,” she says.

“There have been times I’ve done that with family and friends who have innocently happened to trigger off something I’m challenged with at the time.

“Sometimes you do lose friends. People are uncomfortable — they don’t know what to say, or you just don’t hear from people any more.”

It’s the nights at home alone, on her acreage on the Mornington Peninsula, that she feels the loss and isolation most acutely.

In recent months, she’s taken to curling up in bed with a tiny Jack Russell called Buddy — the newest addition to her menagerie of goats, donkeys, dogs and chickens.

Posing with him for a photo on the front lawn, her mouth twitches as the pocket pup licks her on the cheek.

“I called him Buddy, as it’s one of the names I used to call Luke,” she smiles.

“He always wanted a Jack Russell.

“I cuddle him at night and think, ‘This is what Luke would have done’.”

NOT that she’s home much these days: her speaking engagements regularly take her around Australia.

Her schedule has gone into overdrive since she was named Australian of the Year. Trying to handle the pace on her own saw her fall ill with pneumonia in February.

Only recently has she acquired a personal assistant, and a media agency to handle the new campaign.

“It was really difficult at the start — there were moments where I was totally overwhelmed,” she says.

“I was doing the work of an organisation. On top of all of this, I’m still grieving Luke and caught up in my emotional journey. This will be an ongoing challenge for the rest of my life.

“In many ways I’m so thankful to be where I am and doing what I’m doing.

“But no matter how hard I work, I still can’t bring Luke back and reverse what happened — and I think sometimes that’s what I’m trying to do.”

On the flipside, talking to crowded rooms about family violence gives her a shot of positivity and energy.

So, too, does the constant outpouring of gifts from strangers ... letters, cards, poems, flowers, meals, toilet paper — you name it.

Batty rips open an invitation to a Melbourne Cricket Club event; but she was already committed to the Midwinter Ball in Canberra.

Such has been her influence, her phone holds the mobile numbers of everyone from Prime Minister Tony Abbott to Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and former Victoria Police chief commissioner Ken Lay.

“The scope of what I’ve taken on with family violence is enormous, and you think — ‘Who the heck am I? What am I doing?’,” she says.

“I’m just an ordinary person, and I’m not an expert, and I’m meeting the PM and other high-profile people.

“I just need to be honest and authentic, and speak about what I know.”

BUT had it not been for a split-second decision on the morning after Luke’s death, Batty’s life — and as a consequence the lives of countless other victims — could have been very different.

On February 12, 2014, following years of violence and threats directed at Batty, her ex-partner, Greg Anderson, stabbed Luke to death at cricket practice and was then shot dead by police.

Just hours later, she squared her shoulders and delivered a poignant speech to media outside her front gate: silencing hardened journalists, stunning the public, and changing the course of history.

But it almost didn’t happen.

She recalls that as she dozed on the couch that morning, she heard friends planning to tell media waiting at the front gates to move on.

It annoyed her.

“If anyone is going to tell them to go away, it will be me,” she remembers thinking.

She announced to her friends that she would go out, batting away their concerns with typical stoicism.

She rose, swung open the front gate, opened her mouth — and out tumbled the words that marked a defining moment in the nation’s battle against the scourge of domestic violence.

“I want to tell everybody family violence happens to everybody — no matter how nice your house is, how intelligent you are. It can happen to anyone, and everyone,” she said.

The unrehearsed speech lit the spark for a revolution in addressing family violence.

Batty is credited with helping to initiate a royal commission in Victoria.

“I didn’t think I was saying anything profound. As far as I was concerned, I was just relieved I didn’t say anything that could be used against me,” she says now.

“It only became apparent to me as I spoke to media further down the track that it was a unique response.”

Fast-forward to this month, and Batty wipes her eyes as she stares out the bay window in her kitchen, over the swimming pool and across the paddock to grazing donkeys.

SHE knows today is going to be hard.

She sees Luke’s friends shooting up in height and growing whiskers, and hears their voices deepening, and thinks of the future ripped away from her son.

“Everywhere I go there’s a memory,” she says. “It’s bittersweet — I want to see Luke’s friends, but then you see them and they are turning into teenagers.

“I knew how excited Luke would be about graduating and going to high school, the fun things they do at the ceremonies — he would really have been in his element.”

Luke was born when Batty was 40, an unplanned pregnancy after she reignited a romance with Anderson, a former colleague.

Luke grew up to love cricket, football and drama, making others laugh and performing card tricks.

She can’t comprehend what her future will look like without him.

“Last weekend, I felt quite depressed. When you talk about a will, the future ... I have to create a new life,” she says.

“People say politics ... But I don’t know what I want to do. I just know that I can’t go back to what I was.

“But the opportunity to travel, to instigate change, and have a voice that is respected and encouraged, is very very helpful for me.”

elissa.doherty@news.com.au

Twitter: @ElissaDoherty

Originally published as When I started crying, I couldn’t stop