Wendy | Waitara, Taranaki

“I’ve had three children. One of my children was born with an intellectual disability. She then died when she was seven-and-a-half, which was in 2002.

To deal with a child with an intellectual disability is very tough on families. There’s a lack of resources available, if you understand what I mean. Our whole lives were consumed by her and her disabilities. She was very bad at seizuring. So, we could lose a whole 24 hours. She would have anything up to three or four seizures in a day and she would sleep the rest of the day. So that was in 2002, and then my husband died in 2013, with a massive heart attack. So, to get through both of those situations you basically have to just get on with it, because you’ve got two other children to get on with it for. My thing is I’m quite empathetic towards other people. You never know what somebody’s had happened in their lives. So, you can’t pre-judge people. You just have to accept people for what they are presenting with themselves, because unless you start a conversation and learn about people you don’t actually know what they’ve gone through. The biggest thing I think I’ve learned is being understanding of people and their situations. I own a barber shop. I run it quite successfully. I have quite a lot of children with disabilities, because it’s very hard for people to understand, unless you’ve been in that situation. They’re just normal people. They just go about things differently. We’ve all got the ability to achieve things in life. It’s how we go about it that’s different. 

I grew up in Inglewood, left Inglewood when I was 16, and went to Wellington for five-and-a-half years, which I thoroughly loved. Then I came back to Taranaki, and I’ve been in Waitara ever since. I come from a reasonable background. My dad was quite abusive towards us as children, but I’ve never looked at that as a bad thing, it was bad what we were going through, but you can’t make that define the rest of your life. You can change the way you are and the way you handle situations, because we all come from different backgrounds. My parents split when I was 14. So, that was the reason that I went off to Wellington and you just have to get on with life. Put one foot in front of the other, and just keep going, because you never know what’s around the corner.

I purchased the barber shop in 2013. It’s a well-established barber shop in town. It’s been here since 1927. It has a long history. It hasn’t had a lot of owners. One gentleman owned it for 32 years. He was very well-known in the local area, and most people that have owned it have had it for about eight years. So, I love it. Absolutely love it. It’s what got me through things.

It was hard for my kids. When Trevor and I lost Emily, which is our middle daughter who died. We sat down and had the big conversations about what would happen if one of us did die early, and I think because we had that talk, I’m at peace with a lot of things. He always said that he never wanted to lose the ability, if I can put it quite frank, he said he never wanted other people to wipe his bottom, because he’d seen his parents suffer. His mum died of cancer, and his dad had major health issues, and I think when you’ve been through that situation, you sum up life pretty quickly. I think it was harder for my children, because my youngest was only 14, when he died, and I think she wasn’t ready to get some grief counselling and stuff like that, and I think it was really hard for her.”