General News
12 May, 2024
A MOTHER'S DAY REFLECTION - Enduring love to the end
In a post on our Wimmera Mallee News Facebook page, we asked readers to reflect and share their thoughts ahead of Mother's Day on why their mum is special. We did not anticipate this heartfelt response from Tina Paua.
We hear so often stories of joy on the day dedicated to our mothers; occasionally, sadness and longing, too. Tina's words touch on all those emotions so profoundly we felt they deserved to be shared, even if they do draw some tears. They reveal, in fact, a glorious celebration of enduring love between a mother and a daughter, and we sincerely thank Tina for opening her heart. We hope you will thank her too..
April 27 marked the first anniversary of my mother's death.
Still so raw.
Huntington's disease took her life, and it will take my sister Tabatha's too.
It is a cruel disease.
Why is my mother (Christa Turner) so special?
Well, why not!
My mother was my everything.
Born on August 2 1950 and mother to three daughters and a son.
In 1954 they came to Australia from Germany and set up life in South Australia.
Shortly after, two of her siblings died in a tragic accident.
I am the youngest child of her four; her "baby", she would call me, even as an adult and mother myself.
We were super close.
I have cried every day since her passing.
Writing this is so hard because I have so much I could say and it still wouldn't be enough.
I have two sisters before me, Tania and Tabatha, and I had a brother who, at the age of 10, died from congenital heart failure in 1981.
He had his birthday only days earlier.
My brother was a "blue baby" and my parents made the decision to move to Victoria so he could have the best care.
He spent most of his life in hospital, in and out of the Royal Children's Hospital for years and years.
I have watched my mother grieve her son, and no mother should bury her own child.
How much can one woman endure: tragedy after tragedy.
'All she needed to hear was Tina, her baby, and she slipped away
Growing up, in high school I'd ask my mother how to spell a word and she'd say, "Go get the dictionary and look it up".
A kind, warm-hearted woman, yet strict at the same time.
She was so clean, we could eat off the floor.
My parents did it tough.
Mum was forced into work.
She'd be up at 5am and have a shower to get ready for work in a ladies' store in Footscray.
It knocked her about.
One morning my sister Tania heard a thump.
Mum had collapsed in the shower, broken her nose and blocked the bathroom door.
Just awful.
A moral being, my mother, our mother, was one heck of a woman and yet she had to watch her life slip before her.
Imagine your mind being there but your body and voice failing.
Mum was non-verbal in the end, but only months earlier she always said, "I LOVE YOU, TINA".
Oh gosh!
Tears streaming down my face.
And she knew who my eldest daughter was, the only one who could really understand her mumbles.
Many a phone call asking for my daughter Zehra, because Mum needed to hear from her and make sure she was okay.
Bless her.
Bless them.
Mum absolutely loved holding our hands.
Often my daughter and I would paint her nails.
She always had her hair done and wore the nicest clothes.
A lady, no doubt.
So while other people's mothers are special to them, my mum was super special, because no matter what, she was a fighter.
She lived for us.
In October 2022, Mum got Covid.
Though she recovered from that, after being in Footscray Hospital she went back to her home at Grant Lodge Bacchus Marsh.
The next few months she had bouts of pneumonia and she was in and out of Sunshine Hospital.
Then came a time when I had to update her end-of-life.
All throughout April 2023 I watched my mother be starved to death because she could no longer cough up phlegm.
She couldn't eat.
I sent in my sisters and their families.
My church minister from The Living Room Church, Melton and Torquay; ladies from church put their hands up to read her her last rights, to pray and sing over her.
I had organised Mum's dearly departed fiancé Jimmy's children to go tell her it was okay to pass: their dad would be waiting.
I had a call on April 27, just after 4pm.
They said, "Tina, Mum has progressed", and could they call me if they needed to at any time.
"Of course", I said, running around trying to get to her, three hours away from Dimboola.
Not even one minute later, Mum took her last breath.
All she needed to hear was Tina, her baby, and she slipped away.
My mother is my rose.
My sister Tania bought me a rose bush as a thank-you for all I did for our mother.
And my youngest daughter, Tiarnah, is dedicating her Horsham Calisthenics Club graceful solo to the song from Bette Midler, The Rose, in the 2024 regional competitions.
A tribute to her Oma.
I love my mother and I miss her terribly.
But to watch her suffer and be trapped in her body and limited to only a wheelchair with no motor skills, it was more hurtful than to let her go and give her peace.
My eulogy ended with: "Farewell, my rose."