Always Say 'I Love You'

Joanne Rye-McGregor was a New Zealand woman of substance. Photo/Supplied.

COMMENT: Joanne Rye-McGregor was an overachiever even while battling stage 4 cancer. She tutored students in reading and maths, made documentary films, wrote poetry, helped cook, clean and organise during her husband, Robert McGregor's, art retreats in places like Rarotonga and Aongatete, and designed her own costume for Wellington's Fashion in the Field early this year. Her outfit paid tribute to significant occasions for Kiwi women, such as achieving the right to vote. The costume was designed, she wrote, "to celebrate being a New Zealand woman of substance". She flew to the fashion event in January despite being on oxygen, despite the fact taking a few steps made her tired and breathless.

Doctors told Jo breast cancer initially diagnosed in 2010 had spread in 2015. They said the outlook was grim. Jo flipped cancer the middle finger and kept charging forward.

She was more than a doer; she was a champion. A champion for children and their education; a champion for the environment; a champion for the arts; a champion for cancer survivors.

I loved Jo's travel stories. She recounted how she barely escaped West Africa alive on a trip with her daughter; planned to live one day in Thailand and toured Europe and the US on a shoestring. She and Rob had circled the globe, staying in backpackers and collecting new friends en route.

My children met Jo when she was a relief teacher at Mount Primary. She taught them art and oversaw completion of a large mural depicting sport. She guided my son to paint a football player and a tennis player. She was also the "water lady", teaching the importance of conservation.

Jo was my daughter's first maths tutor. The same child who cried when I told her she needed extra tuition in Year 5 maths is today a Year 11 student contemplating a career in accountancy. I can still hear Jo, sitting at our kitchen table, telling my daughter, "You're really getting it. Well done, Miss Sticky Brain - it's like you have velcro in your head and everything sticks." Jo taught my daughter to back herself.

Her colleagues recognised her skills. I'd asked late last month for messages from former workmates at Mount Primary. I planned to read her their statements. But when I saw her - frail, pale, having difficulty speaking, eyes hollow and spacey from pain medication, I lost my nerve. I feared I'd be telegraphing, "Since you're dying, I want to tell you something nice." I'll share excerpts of what they wrote, instead.

"You taught me how to sketch a fish which is still on my classroom wall. I am very proud of what I could achieve with your guidance and I'm sure every child in your class would feel the same."

"Will always remember making/creating the mural for the pool shed and how Rob had the measurements wrong for the sheets of plywood. He wasn't in the good books then, but with some clever ideas and some teamwork, we got there in the end!... Thank you for all you have done for the school and for us."

"Jo was my number 1 reliever and inspiration years ago. She understands children so well in that they love hands-on challenges... activities she did with my class are still some of the best things I have been part of ever: marble runs, roller print art and bug houses. Her passion for sharing with kids cost her a $100 note one day, I think. Her manner with the children lifted their behaviour and they went home having been a better individual that day by rising to the challenge."

Joanne Rye-McGregor was an overachiever even while battling stage 4 cancer. Photo/Supplied.

You, dear reader, and others rallied around Jo when she needed money to import the cancer drug, Ibrance, from Malaysia. A Givealittle page raised more than $18,000. Scans showed Ibrance was shrinking Jo's tumours, but it couldn't stop cancer from filling her lungs with fluid, making what most of us take for granted - breathing - an anxious exercise.

I'd written about Jo for this publication before, about how her cancer had spread, how she and other Stage 4 survivors felt marginalised by the health system. She had little energy to rage against the machine in her last couple of months and praised her hospice nurses as kind and capable.

Miss 15 and I visited Jo when she was at Waipuna Hospice three weeks before she died. My daughter paused in the car park to say she wanted to return to Jo's room to say something important. It was a wise decision and I asked Jo about it a week later when she was home. She said, "I barely remember anything from my Hospice stay; I had messed up my medications. But I remember Fiona coming back to say, 'I love you'." Jo demanded a tremendous amount from herself, even towards the end of life. She wanted to breathe correctly while on oxygen; she wanted to visualise healing… The comment about "messing up medications" told me how much she wanted to control a situation where control was elusive.

My friend explained months ago how she was simultaneously planning her 60th birthday party and her memorial service. The first involved designing an outfit. For the latter, she had chosen halls for the service and reception and organised a dancer to perform. She also wrote her obituary, printed here with her husband's permission:

Joanne Rye-McGregor entry 19th May 1962 bailed 23rd July 2019. Haha, emergency exit and I've left the cancer in a body that is now dead. I win! Swing by and put some butterfly stickers you'll be given on the box at Mt Maunganui College Hall on Saturday 27th at 2pm. Dress code: wear something that has some sparkle and do not even think about reading out a poem ewwwh. Sorry I beat you Dad (Phil) and Mum (Pam). Darlingheart Rob, thank you for the cool bits of my life. I still had truckloads to do. Dearest Briar Rose, it sucks that I won't get to babysit. No flowers, but please give the money to Waipuna Hospice. After match at Omanu Beach SLSC. Please take a small plate. Huggles Joanne.

Always say 'I love you.'

Because people need to know.

Because we don't know if we'll see each other again.
My friend, Joanne Rye-McGregor, died at home in her sleep. Death arrived in the wee small hours of Tuesday, the 23rd of July, on an enclosed deck overlooking the ocean. Jo didn't see the sunrise that morning, didn't witness how the golden glow illuminated the sky's pinks and the water's blues.

Jo was 57 years old. She was a New Zealand woman of substance.