Family is priority for Tilisi

She never got to finish high school, but Tilisi Paniani has no regrets about nursing her parents until their deaths.

The South Auckland woman was 17-years-old when her mum first had a stroke and she had to stop school to look after her.

The youngest child of 11, Paniani grew up in the Cook Islands and her siblings were all living overseas by then.

‘‘I didn’t have a choice. My Mum was struggling ... she needed me,’’ Paniani says.

‘‘I would cry a lot. Sometimes I would see my friends and I missed sports ... I was doing the washing and cooking, life was so tough.’’

Her mum’s health got worse and her parents moved to New Zealand for better healthcare, while Paniani stayed in the Cook Islands. Then, some years later, her dad asked her to move to New Zealand to look after her mum.

She and her husband, Reoreka, uprooted their lives and moved to a new country and Paniani looked after her mum while raising her young children.

Her mum eventually went to a rest home when it became too hard for Paniani and her father to look after her and she died in 2010. She and her husband then helped look after her father until he died in 2016.

‘‘When she left it was like she took half of my heart with her,’’ Paniani says.

Paniani is one of the participants in a study to improve end-of-life care for older Pacific people, led by University of Auckland research fellow Dr Ofa Dewes.

Dewes’ study began this year and is looking into people’s experiences with palliative care and the challenges faced by family who carry out the bulk of care.

Paniani says it was a huge job looking after her parents, and that it takes a lot of love and patience. It’s important for teenagers to make the most of their parents and grandparents now, not just on their birthdays or wait until they get sick, she says.

‘‘Remember it’s going to come back to you one day.

‘‘Tell them how much you love them.’’