"I would always say to him, 'Girls are going to love those lips when you get older, once they get past me'."
She was looking forward to watching him grow up; making friends, playing sport and performing in Te Matatini just as his father had.
However, yesterday Bernice stood High Court in Napier, fragile and broken, and recounted a story depicting every grandmother's "worst nightmare".
MJ was two-and-a-half when he was attacked by his stepfather who left him unconscious with bruises and bite marks all over his body at his Flaxmere home on the morning of October 12, 2015.
His stepfather, Tamehana Huata, was entrusted to care for him that morning as the pair were both feeling ill and MJ's mother, Eranna Tiopira, had to go to work.
Huata had been in a relationship with Eranna for several months and was living with them in their Flaxmere home at the time.
Between the time Eranna received a text message from Huata saying he and her son were going to have a shower at 10.17am and the time Huata rang her to tell her MJ was unconscious at 10.51am Huata had subjected him to several blows to the head.
He was left unconscious with what doctors would later call a subdural haematoma and by the time Eranna rushed home from work he was turning blue.
As a state emergency services volunteer in Tom Price, Western Australia, Bernice was preparing for a rescue ropes systems assessment when she received the dreaded phone call.
"I had 33 missed calls from my daughter who was hysterical and screaming over the phone. The only words I could decipher from her message was 'MJ' and 'hospital'."
She immediately embarked on the long journey home and yesterday described the horror of seeing MJ's "broken" body for the first time.
"I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The sight of my motionless moko. With all the injuries he incurred, from what I was told a fall down the steps, brought tears to our eyes.
"I didn't need an expert to tell me that a fall from a height of two steps [would] inflict injuries like the ones we saw. The experts confirmed what I knew."
An expert would later testify that the injuries were akin to that of a child involved in a serious car accident.
He had suffered a subdural haematoma caused by blunt force trauma and died in the Hawke's Bay Hospital two days later.
Bernice, who represented MJ's paternal family, told the court that instead of celebrating his fourth birthday in March this year they unveiled his headstone.
"It should be a time where we celebrate our loved ones that have passed on. Instead I break down and cry, knowing the manner in which our moko is lying in a place he shouldn't be in."
Huata, who is now 19, was charged with manslaughter and injuring with intent to injure and faced a two-week trial after pleading not guilty to both charges.
Both the prosecution and defence agreed MJ had died as a result of a serious head injury, but argued different cases as to how the head injury was caused.
Crown prosecutor Steve Manning said Huata, who was 17 at the time, had found himself "out of his depth" looking after the boy and proceeded to lose the plot and inflict the serious head injury.
"Parents can snap, even the best parents can snap," Mr Manning said.
Defence counsel Russell Fairbrother QC argued the injuries were caused by the energetic boy tripping on a towel and accidentally falling into a brick wall in a "freakish accident".
It took the jury six hours to find Huata guilty on both charges by unanimous verdict.
Justice Susan Thomas sentenced him to seven and a half years in prison.
Justice Thomas noted his position of power and responsibility at the time that he had violently assaulted the 14kg boy in his care.
"There was a significant breach of trust in that you were entrusted to care for MJ."
She accepted that the violence inflicted upon him was more than just a momentary loss of control and passed no discount for remorse, concluding he had only shown he was sorry MJ had died.
"A period of imprisonment and time for reflection will help assist you in this regard."
The public gallery was filled with family members who broke down in tears and embraced one another.
Among them was Eranna, who remains in a relationship with Huata and is pregnant with his child.
Justice Thomas referred Huata to a victim impact statement written by Eranna where she made clear her continuous love for both MJ and Huata.
Both Huata and Eranna's family later gathered outside court for a karakia. They declined to comment.
Sensible Sentencing Trust child abuse spokesman Scott Guthrie said he had hoped Huata would be sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment with a non-parole period of seven years.
"At the moment we've got a horrific problem with child abuse in this country...I would suggest he'll be free in the community within three and a half years. So what this tells me is that a child's life is worthless in this country."
Bernice now faces a future without her "precious treasure" and said she struggles to put her life in perspective.
"Assessing my pain today and telling you how this drama has affected us is virtually impossible. Our lives were turned upside down on the 12th of October 2015 on receiving that dreadful phone call.
"As a grandmother I feel maltreated and damaged, forever scarred. Life no longer feels ordinary. Nothing could make me forget the gratuitous torture inflicted upon our loving boy. The lives of my whanau have been shattered forever.
"MJ, when I see videos and photos of you, watch kapa haka, watch your dad play his sport, anything that reminds me of you every single day, I cry out to you from the bottom of my heart.
"You should still be here but you are not. The sequential order in which this has occurred is extremely wrong. It should have been you burying me."
