Paul Holmes: Always loved, forever remembered

Together celebrating my investiture as a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, and at Mum's funeral, right. Photos / Mark Mitchell, Hawke's Bay Today

When dad died, I didn't speak at his funeral. I could not. I decided that day that I would at least do it for Mum when the time came.

Monday ... just after midday. About 12.20. I was sitting outside on a concrete wall at Mana Lodge talking to Nigel. The phone went. It was Paul Johnson, Mum's loyal, long-serving and dedicated GP. Paul looked after Mum beautifully. I sat with Mum as he interrogated her in his surgery some months back and was impressed with his skills as an interrogator. He asked her difficult, potentially worrying things in a way that did not threaten her. Of course, when we got in the car she made clear that she knew exactly what he was doing. She missed nothing, Mum.

So it's Paul on the phone.

He said: "I'm afraid I have some bad news."

Straightaway I thought something evil must have shown up in the x-ray Mum had last week.

I said: "What? What? What?"

He said, "I'm afraid I have some bad ..."

I said, "I heard that bit."

He said, "The district nurse has just found Chrissie dead in her chair."

I'll remember the sound of that word "dead" forever.

This year had been hard for Mum. A fall in January put her in hospital for about eight weeks. She dreaded the place. There were times she thought she was never going to get out. But she did. She said she never wanted to go into hospital again.

Over the past 10 days, Mum became increasingly frail. Last weekend Deborah and I decided we were coming to the point of some decisions. On Sunday, Deborah asked Mum if she'd like to come and live with us. She said she didn't want to be a burden. What we did not know was that she had less than 24 hours left.

Christina Maude Robertson was born in Hastings on April 5, 1924. She was the last of six children. Bill, Harry, Bob, Dora and Jack have all been gone for many years. Mum is the last to go. She has mourned all her siblings.

They were a big, boisterous working-class family. They were very close and remained so all their lives. Mum said her brothers always spoiled her. She always related with pride how, when Bill, the oldest, won a doll in a little pram in a raffle, someone offered to buy it from him. Bill could have done with the money. "No," said Bill. "I'm taking this home for my little sister."

Mum's mother, also Christina, died when my brother Ken and I were not yet into double figures. She had a brain haemorrhage and died suddenly. She was a warm and lovely woman, with a radiant smile. Mum looked, in her later years, amazingly like Nana.

Nana died at 67. Mum's sister, Dora, also died at 67. Mum was always convinced she would die at the same age. When she made 67, she was on tenterhooks for a year. Then she made 68 and was all right again. And look at her. She made 85.

Before Mum was a teenager, the world was engulfed by the Great Depression. They were already poor. Now they were desperately so. Her father, Charlie, had to go away and seek work, which he found on a railway gang fixing lines. When the Hawke's Bay earthquake struck in 1931, Charlie walked back to Hastings, not knowing the fate of his family all the way from Dannevirke to Hastings.

Mum went to school in winter barefoot, breaking ice in the puddles on her way. Nana was too proud to accept hand-me-downs unless they came from within the family. There was a continual stream of scones made in the house. Nana would not allow the kids to go to the soup kitchen. One day, Mum got a second-hand pair of shoes from outside the family and a girl at school said loudly, "Chrissie Robertson's wearing my old shoes."

At school, Mum's best friend was Shirley Garnett, who became Shirley Waterhouse ... whom we have known all our lives as Aunty Shirley. Shirley is here today. Mum and Shirley enjoyed more than 80 years of friendship.

Last Monday, when Paul phoned me, I first told Deborah, then I tried to get hold of Ken, and then I phoned Shirley. Actually, Mum had left clear instructions about who was to be phoned. Shirley was to be visited, not phoned. I'm so sorry, Shirley. Ken and I have always loved you, Aunty Shirley.

After the war, cycling along the street, Mum first saw our father. He'd served five years overseas. They married in 1949. Dad had built a shed on the little property he'd bought with a state advances loan, at Haumoana. He was going to grow tomatoes. They lived in the shed whilst he built the house, in which Ken and I lived as children. I was conceived in the shed.

In December of 1954, when Ken was 2 and I was 4, Mum went into the maternity home to have her third child. A couple of weeks later, Dad drove us into the hospital to pick her up. Mum got in the car. There were flowers, but no baby. Christopher John had lived only 10 days.

After we went to school, Mum went back to work. She had to. And for most of our lives she worked full time. Mum and Dad showed us both how to work. She is still loved by the people she worked with.

In the 2005 election, Mum nearly voted National. When I asked her how she voted she said, "Paul, I stood in that polling booth and a vision of my mother loomed up in front of me and I remembered what the first Labour Government did for her in the Depression. I had to vote Labour."

Some years after Dad died, Mum met Martin at the bowling club. They married and were a huge, loving support for each other. Last year Martin died and Mum felt a terrible loss. It was terrible to see. She felt an immense loneliness. And she knew her time was coming soon.

Mum had an impish sense of humour. During the years of Holmes my colleagues, always without telling me, would put her on telly with me and she did not flinch. In fact, as Mum became something of a public figure, she never put a foot wrong.

Sometimes in later years, if I'd been too busy and hadn't phoned Mum for a couple of weeks, I would do so and apologise. She would say: "That's all right, Paul, it's just another brick in the wall of pain."

I would roll my eyes.

For my final breakfast programme at the end of last year, Mum was brought to Auckland. We broadcast from a restaurant in front of an invited audience that included the former Prime Minister, Helen Clark, and the new Prime Minister, John Key. During a break, I saw my producer leading Mum to our little stage. She sat down in front of the microphone. I saw she had written a speech. Off she went. She had the room in gales of laughter. She was the star. We were so proud of her.

Chrissie, your grandsons ... Henry, Theo and Reuben adored their Nana. And one day Millie will understand how much she was loved by her Nana. And one day Millie will realise how much she loved her Nana.

Ken and Vicki, Deborah and I, had a breakfast together at Mum's the Monday before she died. She said how wonderful it was, our all being together, that we should do it more often, that life is very short. None of us said anything. We all felt that that might be the last time we would all be together with Mum.

So goodbye, Chrissie. You are loved and always will be.

When I saw you on Monday, sitting in your chair, your head to one side, obviously dead, you looked so beautiful. You were free. You died as you wanted, in your own home, in command of everything.

You were ready to go. We knew you were. And now you had. It was okay, Mamma. I'm so happy I was there, to kiss you goodbye when you were still soft and warm, just after you left us.

Ken and I thank you from deep within our hearts and souls for the life you gave us, for what you taught us, for the love you gave us, for the generosity of spirit you showed us.

You knew the real meaning of love.

And we will love you forever, Chrissie. We love you, Mum.