have it seen it yet, but thanks for the heads up Sharon!! I'll be off 2 check it out! And can I tell you that was a looong secret to have to keep but was stoked to represent!
Also congrats to Sandra!! Thats awesome for you guys
Also been a little sad.... but not to bad as it is was the anniversary of my Nan so in good old form another spin on the same story!! PS it is a loong post
Its been nine years since our beautiful Nan died and this is my little story. Soon after she passed away I took to writing all that I could remember and this is only my version of the events and know we each have our own story to share . So these are just my ramblings and scribbles of what my heart and mind remember
Its been nine years today.... nine years since Nan died and the day was not un like the sun that shine on this day 2007. Can I tell you that I hate cancer! It made no sense to me when in April 1996 Nan said to me, "Michelle feel this" and when she placed my hand against her chest, my fingers turned cold. I hadn’t experienced cancer before but there is a chill upon your heart when something unknown begins to define a moment where the both the journey and destination are mapped before you. Granted, Nan was 86 years old, but this??? breast cancer. God damn I was angry, our beautiful and I mean beautiful 86 years old grandmother who had breastfeed 16 children, lived a healthy fit life was now facing this... god damn I was angry.... but what to do with the anger when you then take your hand from her breast and move your cold finger tips across the numbers of the phone... "mum, its Michelle, Nans got a .... a.... ( I cant say it) mum Nans got a lump on her breast I think we have to ring Dr Tomkins...." Nan squeezes my other hand and my heart melts and the anger subsides... for now.
I'm not sure where the weeks went but the first visit to the consultants room was difficult. Difficult because its meant our fears were confirmed. I felt sorry for him because it his small clinical room with his warm smile he had to tend with my mum and aunties. The aunties and dad were awesome. We had to move chairs from the reception into the room and had dad and the uncles standing against the wall
One of the hardest parts was helping Nan get undressed in the little cubicle. She was literally laughing to help ease my pain and reality by singing songs to me, instead of me singing to her (though that said my flat voice wouldn’t have helped). We had brought a scarf to wrap around her because of her dignity and modesty which was always of importance to her. For the entire time while we undressed her she held my hand. This was pretty difficult because we had to remove 2 silk petticoats, 1 affco singlet, another petticoat that she had crocheted a taniko style edge to,one blouse, one jersey and a jacket it was no easy task. She only let go when she had to move toward the doctor. There was a sense of finality to that but also a time that remained etched in my mind.
So the rongoa stage begins. the one that finds you tripping around the country side searching for this doc leave, this honey pollen, this mushroom or that mushroom, grape pills, juicing carrots, epsom salts, kumara hou, kawakawa…. the lot and every morning afternoon and dinner Fred, Nan and I prayed and she diligently took them while we watched in silence, faith and in hope. Fred was dedicated to this. It gave him a sense of purpose and feeling that we were helping .....
Life of course goes on………… in fact hope was granted to us and after a couple of biopsy the lump hadn’t increase and it hadnt spread. But the clinical terms didn’t always make that easy to understand. The moment a statement of hope was made, the doctor would then bring us back to reality and say that time was the factor… not of life but of the other… the words I could not bring my self to say……
During this time I gave birth to my son Rangitautini, who Nan adored, and as a gift from God was an easy baby and so the days were spent on my return home to Te Puke driving Nan around the motu and listening to stories of old. I guess when death is presented to you in time frames it does grant you perspective and reflection to think about all the questions who have ever wanted to ask, to know, to learn and so I did as I had done as a child. As a kid going through high school, my greatest fear was coming home and finding Nan gone, or that one morning I would wake up and look across to her in her bed with the swan duvet and beige tri pillow and find that her blankets did not rise and fall with her breath. It never happened but the fear I was now experiencing as an adult, a young mother and as a granddaughter was punctuated with a sense of grace and thanks. Thankful that I was given this time and thank ful that I could appreciate Nan whilst she was alive.
And then that which we were scared of arrived. An operation was recommended and again my anger kicked. What the %^#!! It was a difficult time for us all and as a family there were choice to be made. We only ever wanted to make the best choices for our mum, our Nan our strength and sometimes as an individual we put our needs higher than that of our whanau who is unwell. Sometimes we forget, and sometimes we don’t want to remember because all we know is the mother that we love has 50% 50% chance of dying on the table because of her age in that makes do god damn sense at all!! The other reality is that our matriarch is slowing becoming fragile. Her tall broad frame becomes slight and slim, her wide face and bright smile, become thinner and the eyes hollow and so the physical requirement of caring for a terminal Nan become apparent, regardless of any previous attempt to ignore the obvious. Initially Nan had decided to have the operation and our whanau all came to gether given the 50:50 stat and we4 laughed and we cired and we argued and we said speeches. The support for the operation was split but at the end of the day we would always support the decision Nan made. So that night May 9 1998 she decided to not go ahead with the operation and that she would go to God in her fullness. F%&# I was angry!! I’ll admit it outloud. It made no sense to me because “I” wanted to feel as though we were doing something, something to ease her pain or make her live longer, something…. Anything…. Just not this… nothing………………….
So my amazing whanau kicks in. For many, physically being there isn’t possible because of travel, time , money, work involved and sometimes past pains… but on reflection I learnt that there are no rules for death and how we cope is often an individual choice that only the individual can deal and no judgements can nor should be made as we don’t know what our future bring. But because of the pure numbers of our whanau we were able to care for Nan in her last few months on a 24/7 basis. She deterioted quickly. The cousins aunties uncles all pitched in. There were jobs assigned to the women and in fairness was again a means to look after our Nan diginity but our men came into do the lawns, rubbish and keep the house maintained as it always had been. For whanau who had to work because of there whanau, they would come in the evening to relive the day shift and bring in kai and take away the washing, do the dishes. There was a peace to be found in caring for Nan. I was humbled and honoured to be with her, not just for the last few months but almost every day of my life. Our whanau starting a diary tracking her care, her movements, her mood. Initially it was so that the next shift could she what had been done but in the end it became a diary for us to express how we were coping, how we loved her and what she meant to us. This diary is still around somewhere, though where I am not sure. Moving home was an easy decision for me from Waikato, even though I was pregNant with my second child and when she became terminal in late may and then further deteriated in July I knew I had made the right choice.
The days were filled with singing waiata koroua, lifting her legs while she sat in her wheel chair while singing the maori battlion songs, brushing her silver hair while talking about people she remember and who had for many years past on. Then she became bed ridden and together as we all sang we would learnt to roll her, bandage the bed sores, change her, wash her and learnt to transfer her from bed to commode, bed to bath that kinda thing. All while I was about 8 months pregNant and then for a few days I had to leave to give birth to my second son Wiremu August 28 1998.
We then lost her almost in one night in Sept and rushed to hospital. Tauranga hospital ED services didn’t know what hit them as over 100 of followed the ambulance in and 40 of us went with her into ED. We didn’t know what else to do put sing and talk with her. To pull her hair way from her face, hold her hand and brush her hair even though she looked 9 months pregNant because of the toxins in the body. They placed her in a ward and again we moved in and took over the room making room only for the amazing nurses and doctors that came in. In the end they told us a couple of days and released her so that she could be at home for those final moments and again the entourage followed. We moved her into the lounge so we could have ease of access by having the bed in the middle of the room, like in the hospital. For those remaining nights and mornings we would have karakia and sit there and reminisce and 3 days later she pasted away at about 8.30am 28 September 1998. In the period of a month I experienced pure joy with the birth of my second son who was sick and cried constantly and then pure pain with the passing of Nan and with Fred, or a time that I would never forget but had now lost.
Sadly I don’t remember much of the tangi other than it was huge. My son cried and cried with severe colic and I lost sense of time and hours with little time to face my pain and loss. In some regards it was a god send because I didn’t have time to get lost in my grief but instead needed my strength to care for my 2 sons, but for a long time afterwards I would experience this overwhelming sense of grief and absense from the world and on other days I would wake and forget that she was gone and that I was now a mother of 2 children and not a teenager waking up in my grandmother home…….
Theres more but not today...... I have a hill top to sit upon and to gaze out to sea with my cala- lilles and orchids
