What gives you hope?

Mary | Te Tai Poutini

Mary reflects on the loss of her long-time partner Bob and the challenges of caregiving, emphasising the importance of staying engaged with life and keeping people close during difficult times.

“They’ve been challenging years. My wonderful partner has been dead for six years now. Bob was my second partner. And we were together for more than 35 years.

He died of a mixture of Parkinson’s and medical misadventure. And the last year or so was pretty challenging. But he was able to stay at home for most of that time and he died here, which is what he wanted to do.

It was very sad for him because he couldn’t do the things he wanted to do. He was a wonderful musician. He was a woodcarver. He had been a carpenter but he’d given that up with a bad back and things like that. What he wanted me to do, and which I did do, was just to keep everything going. I had a lot of help. I had friends come and people took turns, gave me breaks.

I continued with the art and craft tutoring that I was doing one day a week. Then, continued with the jam sessions and music sessions, even when he couldn’t come. And he didn’t want me to be sad about it but of course I am.

I’ve always got something to do. I think that is quite important. Many, many years ago, my mother had a stroke at 80. She didn’t want to live after that stroke. But she did live with me and Bob for another three years. But all that time she wanted to hide. She didn’t want to see people after her stroke.

And I definitely found that was probably one of the most depressing parts of my life. Not being able to do anything about that. We’d take her out in a wheelchair and she’d say, “Just take me home, I don’t want to see anyone.”

And so I think part of that actually showed me the real importance of keeping people in your life.”