Mum able at last to bid her daughter goodbye
Moo and Moo and the Little Calf Too. “These are our friends — the guts of our farm really,” he said. “People always want to know about the cows and whether they were ever saved. It's always about the cows, not the people or the earthquake itself. A year has passed since Leila Mackinnon learned of her daughter’s death after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake on the Kaikoura Coast.
Jo-Anne Mackinnon, 55, died in her Mt Lyford home after receiving a head injury in the quake. She was one of two people killed. Jo-Anne’s 82-year-old mother was finally able to farewell her daughter on yesterday’s anniversary of the quake, having been unable to attend the original funeral because of her age and the region’s blocked roads.
Leila Mackinnon was joined by about 250 others at a dawn service and blessing led by te Runanga o Kaikoura at the restored South Bay Marina yesterday morning.
As the sole family member present for either of the two quake victims, she had a special role when she laid flowers at a whale bone memorial with Kaikoura mayor Winston Gray.
Despite having been in Christchurch during the disaster, Leila Mackinnon recalled the day of the quake with heartbreaking clarity as she spoke to Herald Focus reporter Tristram Clayton.
“It is like unreal. I was up on my own and it [ the shaking] wouldn’t stop. It went on and on and I have Herald — Kurt Bayer never noticed it before so long, it wouldn’t stop,” she said.
“I got a chair and sat with the telephone and it wouldn’t stop, the rocking, rocking, rocking.”
Mackinnon spoke of her concern for her daughter as the hours passed after the quake.
“I kept saying, ‘ Jo-Anne for goodness’ sake ring me, ring me, ring me’, but nothing happened. “Nobody rang me.” She recalled the moment her granddaughter, Jo-Anne’s daughter, burst through the back door and said her mother was dead.
An autopsy finding by forensic pathologist Johan Duflou later stated the death was caused by “blunt force head injury [earthquake fatality]”.
Mackinnon said she has lived with her daughter’s death “day after day”, but found some relief in the service.
“It was so amazing and it was a beautiful service. I met so many people that knew me but I was gathering them up. It was lovely.”
The family also planned a private ceremony at Jo-Anne’s grave.
Gray told the Herald it had been “a tough old year” for the region.
“It’s going to take some time to recover.”