Grace | Māngere
“I think the hardest time for me in my life, well probably one of the hardest times, was when my dad died when I was 29, and I had just given birth to my second child, and I was here in Māngere, living here.
I’d been here a few years, and was feeling really isolated, and lonely, and having to work through grief, I think is one of the hardest things you learn, and I got through the degree, because of the people around me, a really stable marriage, and a really awesome husband that just was there, and my faith, and it was my faith that held me on, and made me just work through the cycle of grief, come out the other side, accept it, and be able to, now 29 years later, live with it. It just becomes part of who you are, helps you be more empathetic, caring for other people who lose and help people through grief, and I suppose that’s the silver lining when you go through something hard, is you learn from it so that you’re there to help other people when they go through it. You can support them in a way that’s useful, not just out of loss of yourself, because you’ve felt those feelings. Since then, other people have died in our lives, because I’m older, and it’s been useful to know how to cope, and help people cope, and especially help other family members help when you go through tragedy, and I suppose right now, when that’s a fear of people, with Coronavirus, I think that it’s good just to keep our hope, to not live in fear, to be hopeful, and have a good foundation, and my foundation’s my faith.
I was born up north in Te Kōpuru, and I’ve lived in Wellington, but I moved to Auckland when I was seven. I grew up in Mt Eden, went out west, and I came here 33 years ago when I married my husband, and have lived here ever since. I’ve raised three children here, who now all live overseas, and have become part of this fabric. Presently I am CEO of the Good Seed Trust, which if you live in Māngere, you will know our vans, and we work with families around our youth and early childhood centres, and our youth programs. That’s me.”
