Sonya | Howick
“I’m Sonya from Howick. I was raised here in Pakuranga, and I’ve moved to Howick. I just grew up in an average family, you know; mother, father, I’ve got an older sister.
I got married when I was 23, had my first child when I was 25, and my second one when I was 28, and we currently live on a lifestyle block in Howick and we’ve got alpacas and chickens. My husband drives trains for a living, and I own a dog day-care and cattery and grooming parlour. So apart from my family, animals have been my life. I’ve always worked with animals. Never done anything else, and my husband supported me in that, and my kids are also animal lovers. So it’s a bit of a family affair.
I guess nursing my dad through his final last six weeks of his illness was, I don’t know if I’d call it brave or courageous, but it was hard, and out of my comfort zone a little bit. And having kids? Off the top of my head, it’s really hard to think of something brave or courageous that I’ve done.
I had Dad’s wife staying with us as well when I was helping him which was amazing. Everybody deals with things differently, and I wanted him to come and live with us. My dad got diagnosed with cancer and then for five years he fought it and during his third tumour that came up, he just told us that he couldn’t fight it anymore and that he just couldn’t do chemo again. So, we had to respect those wishes, and we understood them completely. We lost him a few months later. Sorry, we just lost a friend of ours two weeks ago as well, to cancer, so it’s just sort of bringing it all back up again.
You need to do what you’re comfortable with. If you’re not the sort of person who can do that, well I didn’t think I could do it, and I don’t know if I could have done it without the support of my father’s wife. I think you’ve got to what you have to do, as you can do it and when you can do it to help other people, regardless of how hard it is for you. It’s just something that you do. I would like to think someone would step up and help me if I was in that situation. But not everyone can do it, I guess you don’t know until you’re put in that situation, whether you can or not.”
