Inspiring journey of girl who loved living

Kat (R) with her adoptive family, from left, Pierre, mum Heloisa, Wilhelm, dad Vilfredo and David.

Katherine "Kat" Schurmann's remarkable life began at North Shore Hospital on July 8, 1992. It ended after 13 years travelling the world and a relentless battle with HIV, the virus which causes Aids.

Kat's adoptive brother David Schurmann shared her story with the Weekend Herald, telling of a life that defied her medical condition, full of travel, activity and learning.

Both Kat's parents were HIV-positive and she was born with the virus.

By the time she was 3, her mother had died and her ailing father asked Brazilian friends to adopt her.

"It was the most important decision in our lives," said David. The Schurmanns, who maintain strong ties to New Zealand, arrived in this country in 1989 when the family sailed to Opua in the Bay of Islands.

"We fell in love immediately with the country and especially the friendly Kiwi welcome," David said.

He and his younger brother went to Bay of Islands College in Kawakawa and when it came time to leave, David told his family he wanted to stay.

The rest of the family sailed off in June 1991, but three days off the coast a storm broke their boat's mast and forced them to return to New Zealand for another six months.

During this time they met Kat's father, Robert Lockett, a keen sailor who had worked in Brazil as a gas and oil prospector and was married to an Amazonian Indian woman.

"He mentioned that his wife Jeanne was a Brazilian lady and that she would love to meet some Brazilians," David said. Mrs Lockett was pregnant with Kat at the time and in 1993, after she was born, the two families spent the summer sailing together in Northland.

In April 1995, Mr Lockett and 3-year-old Kat turned up at the launch in Brazil of Mrs Schurmann's book about the family's travels.

He told them his wife had died of an Aids-related illness on Kat's second birthday and that he and Kat were also HIV-positive. He said he and Mrs Lockett had dreamed of raising Kat on a yacht, and asked the Schurmanns if they would adopt her. They agreed.

"My parents had already fallen in love with Kat's sweet way. So had we, her brothers," David said.

Doctors told the family Kat's health was fragile and she did not have long to live. But new medicines gave her a better quality of life and a pleasurable childhood, David said.

She loved to sail, and in 1997 began a 2 1/2 year circumnavigation of the globe with the family, visiting 19 countries.

In January 2003, David's parents brought her to New Zealand to see her father, who died that May.

David said Kat displayed a huge zest for life during her 11 years with his family, doing ballet, yoga, swimming, kayaking, scuba diving and whitewater rafting. "There was no time for unhappiness," he said. "She was never afraid of a new challenge."

But Kat faced a constant battle with her illness, as well as discrimination. "She would always ask people not to judge children that had some kind of limitation because she was always judged due to her small size and quirky way of walking," David said.

Pneumonia killed the family's youngest "crew member" on May 29, six weeks shy of her 14th birthday.

The Schurmanns plan to bring Kat's ashes to New Zealand, fulfilling a promise to reunite her with her mother and father.