Caring souls there when last journey is in sight

In the lead up to Hospice Awareness Week reporter Kate Newton visited Waipuna Hospice to talk to those who care for the dying.
THEY probably don't even realise they are doing it.
A nurse is perched on either side of 83-year-old Anna Van Der  Zee's chair and while they talk about her late husband's time in Auschwitz and then the times in Argentina where she wore beautiful gowns to dinner, the hand stroking seems a subconscious act.
The nurse on Mrs Van Der Zee's right softly massages her fingers while the nurse on the left pulls up her bright blanket and helps her put on a gold watch.
Three weeks ago it fit her wrist but Mrs Van Der Zee has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer since then and now it's too heavy and with too many links.
She has already said goodbye to one son who had to return to Australia having made the trip across the Tasman when he heard the diagnosis.
Now Bill, her other son, has popped in to Waipuna Hospice to see his mum.
"We were so lucky to get her in here," he says.
When Mrs Van Der Zee was struggling to breathe she used her medical alarm and was taken to Tauranga Hospital.
From there it was a trip up the road to Hamilton's oncology centre where family received the news she had only weeks left to live.
She refused radiotherapy and the family decided that back home in Tauranga was the place for their mum to live out the rest of her days.
Waipuna Hospice had a bed that was free and the care, Bill says, is magnificent.
"She doesn't want to leave but we've already prepared her for it and told her this isn't a long term thing," he said.
Not because she will die there, but because most of those who go to stay at the hospice end up walking out again.

It's something maintenance man Kevin Balfour, the one who organises the beds for patients when they need to go home, gets to see. "People have the wrong idea about this place. People don't come here to die. They just come for some respite," Mr Balfour says.
"I see people walk out with a spring in their step."
At Christmas  he is known to mount his ride-on mower wearing a Santa suit.
"I like giving something back," he says.
He speaks with the same passion for his job as the lady known for her apple crumble.
"I can't make enough of it. It's definitely the most popular dessert, " Lisa Burroughs-Mather says. Young, blonde and wearing sleeveless pink, she's perhaps not who you would expect to be in front of the stove and stirring the lunchtime gravy.
But just last year she had her own reminder of mortality.
"I had a brain aneurysm," she says matter-of-factly.
"I had brain surgery, it was a pretty intense experience.
"My doctor said being a chef was probably not a good idea anymore so it gave me a chance to think about what else I could do.
"I was recovering and recuperating and I thought about volunteering because I was going crazy at home. I thought 'I should volunteer at that Waipuna place'."
So when her son spotted a situations vacant advert for a chef at the hospice, his mum told him to pull the other leg.
"I've created a freshly squeezed juice menu because who wants hot soup over summer and I funked up the breakfast menu a bit and put some blueberry waffles and bagels on there," she said.
 
The inpatients she cooks for make up just a small percentage of the 180 people Waipuna can be caring for at any one time.
Most choose to die at home and to be cared for by the hospice's community nurses.
Christy Jackson remembers her first day out in the community for Waipuna.
"I had been to see seven really sick and dying people. I got back here and I thought 'I can't do this, it's too hard'," she says.
"But someone said to me 'you can't change the outcome but you can change what happens today'. There are a lot of tears, as well as laughter, but mostly it's a privilege."