I didn’t really know my Nana Colleen before she had her stroke, leaving half her body permanently paralysed and her speech restricted to only a purseful of words. I was only six weeks old. By all accounts she was a powerful woman, her list of accomplishments as long then as her list of great-grandchildren is now.
She was the first Pākehā ever to marry into the Ngarewa family. Our whakapapa traces all the way back to Kupe on one side, the first man to arrive in Aotearoa on a waka, and to Turi on another, the captain of Aotea waka who settled in Pātea. The names of men, women and children are recounted in our manuscripts, each telling of their unique connection to this land. And then, after nearly a thousand years of Māori names and Māori whakapapa, Ueroa marries Parewaho, who gives birth to Hemi who marries Colleen, my nan.
Thin-boned, fair-skinned and redheaded though she was, Nan committed herself to the culture, becoming an integral part of marae and hapū life, learning our ancestral tongue alongside local legends like Nanny Hui, famous internationally for leading the opening karanga to Poi E and renowned closer to home for being a kind, caring and loving woman to all. It wasn’t long before Nan was the most fluent in the whole of the Ngarewa family. No small feat, given that after the freezing works closed, her husband, whom we call Koko, taught the language at the local high school.
As good a learner as she was, she is remembered as an even better teacher, beginning her journey in education as a cleaner at the local primary school, and going on to become a teacher aide. Then she gained her teaching certificate. Driven by her love of children, and not content with making change only in her own classroom, she sought to have an even greater influence on the township, becoming a principal at the very same school she started mopping the floors of all those years ago.
When Nan had her stroke, the news spread quickly throughout Pātea and an informal town meeting was called in their living room. My older sister was there, only 5 years old, able to recall to this day how hard it hit everyone. They didn’t think she’d live. And she almost didn’t, falling into a long coma. My aunties and uncles told me what it was like waiting there by her bedside at the hospital, the doctors encouraging the family to pull the plug, afraid of what the consequences of such a serious brain attack and extended period in a comatose state would have on her quality of life. But the family saw signs that Nan was still in there, determined to fight her way back into the world. As we often joke about our nan, “You can’t kill a weed.”
To this day, I do not know whether this next part is true or an elaborate trick the family played on me, but the story goes that I woke Nan up from her coma as a newborn with a one-two punch of crying in the hospital room and peeing on her. I can’t verify the truth of this story, nor can I say whether I peed in my nappy on top of my nan or I was temporarily without a nappy and, when I peed on her, I literally peed on her. Either way, it seems that, whatever I did, it was enough to disturb Nan’s long sleep.
From there, Nan and I were learning everything together. How to stand. How to walk. How to talk. It was a long road for Nan to get better. And I am sure there were times when the doctors doubted she’d ever recover enough to regain her independence. But the family didn’t. They had seen all that Nan had gone through. They knew that nothing could stop her once she’d put her mind to something. And again she proved us right, recovering better than we could’ve hoped and doing things we thought she’d never do again.
Although Nan couldn’t return to work, she returned to marae and hapū life, parked up on the comfy lounge chairs, seated beneath the photos of those who have passed on, including Ueroa, her father-in-law, who lived with Nan and Koko for many years. She also returned to her place as the head of the family. With only one good arm, one good leg and a walking frame, she flung herself from room to room, running her house as efficiently as she once ran the school. She went back to looking after her family, spoiling her husband, cooking dinners, cleaning the house and keeping one of the most beautiful gardens in South Taranaki.
Every birthday, even as the number of her moko stretched across multiple generations, she never missed her now-famous Happy Pirschday calls, her stroke making some letters hard to pronounce. She never skipped steam pudding when Christmas came around, and never ceased to rush to brew a cup of tea for the masses that poured and still pour through her doors.
We should’ve known no stroke was going to stop Nan from doing what she needed to do, zooming as quickly with her frame as some of her moko walked with two good legs. Never was this more apparent, though we’d have to deny it in a court of law, than when some of her moko were stuck somewhere without a ride and Nana Colleen got behind the steering wheel of her and Koko’s gold Toyota Camry to do what needed to be done. In every dimension imaginable pre- and post-stroke, our Nana Colleen has dedicated her life to looking after everyone else.
And that is as true then, when Nan was first recovering, as now in her 70s – as fast with her wit and her walking frame as she has ever been. Although her hair is not as red as it used to be, this Irish woman is no less fiery, and no less insistent whenever her moko come to visit that she is about to eat and have a cup of tea – that stroke changing her comfort drink from coffee to tea – and that we must do the same.
A lot of people tell me I got my looks from Nan, the fair skin and the red hair, and in some ways I was even named for her – Airana meaning Ireland. I hope also in my heart of hearts I’ve got even an ounce of her determination in the face of impossible odds and commitment to look after the people around her.
Thank you, Nan, for being the embodiment of what sheer willpower can accomplish. And thank you for looking after all of us, despite some of us crying loudly and occasionally peeing on you. I love you, Nana Colleen.
PS, don’t growl at me for telling the world how you drove that car without a licence. The older moko made me do it.
Airana Ngarewa (Ngāti Ruanui, Ngā Rauru, Ngāruahine) is the author of The Bone Tree.
