Lata Visinia lost her husband, James Visinia, to cancer. She was left to raise two children under 2 and is sharing what life has been like two years on. Video / Michael Craig
Lata Visinia still forgets to take the bins out on rubbish day - something her husband used to do.
“Lord knows how many I’ve missed since he’s been gone.”
The 31-year-old, of West Auckland, is a proud mum of daughter Mia-Elianna, 4, and 2-year-old son Elton-James Visinia.
She was marriedto her best friend, James Isaia Visinia, for three years before he was diagnosed with stage 4 gastric cancer in early 2023.
He celebrated his 33rd birthday the week before he died, in November, that same year.
Lata Visinia has been navigating grief and raising her babies since; and started writing a journal for her children to one day read to better understand their family’s journey.
Lata Visinia, whose husband died two years ago after being diagnosed with stage 4 gastric cancer. She was widowed at 29 with two kids under 2. She's started a blog to talk about their grief journey. Photo / Michael Craig
That journal turned into a blog - 29 & Widowed - after sharing with family and close friends about what she was doing.
“29 and now a widow. Wow, you got me good, Lord. I did not sign up for this,” she wrote in one of her first posts.
Little Mia-Elianna Visinia climbed onto her father James Visinia's casket at his funeral in 2023. Photo / Supplied
“He didn’t think it was anything big until just before I gave birth, he was getting really bad tummy aches.
“Five weeks later, we discovered he had cancer. That felt like we were hit by a bus.
“He did six months of [intense] chemo from February to July and then took a break. Then we just travelled - we travelled right up until October. When we came back, he started getting his symptoms again.
“When he was admitted to hospital, it kind of just deteriorated...That whole first year after he passed, I was just trying to survive.”
Visinia acknowledged she had underestimated the response she might get from other people - many of them strangers - who had read her blog posts and found a connection, on some level, and had reached out to her.
“I was so shocked at the response and how many people are actually experiencing grief in their own way - whether [they’d lost] their spouse, their mum, their dad or their child.
‘There is hope’
“When you’ve experienced grief yourself, it feels so lonely. No matter how many people walk through your door, no matter how many people message you, it still feels lonely.”
“The main thing I wanted people to receive is that there is hope.”
Lata Visinia and her children, Mia-Elianna and Elton-James Visinia. Photo / Supplied
Visinia, a registered physiotherapist, is yet to return to work after taking maternity leave shortly before her son was born.
She said raising her children was sometimes a challenge, but acknowledged the huge support she had received from her and James’ immediate families.
“He’s in everything that I do - especially with the kids. The choices I make, the way that I choose to raise them - his thoughts are always in my head when I make a big decision.
“The hopes that I had for us - as a family - the dreams that we had shared together, it was like they just went out the door,” she said.
“Right now I’m discovering what my dreams are now and what that looks like for me and the kids.”
Vaimoana Mase is the Pasifika editor for the Herald’s Talanoa section, sharing stories from the Pacific community. She won junior reporter of the year at the then Qantas Media Awards in 2010 and won the best opinion writing award at the 2023 Voyager Media Awards.
