“I knew as soon as I heard the footsteps. At Mum and Dad’s house in Dunedin, I’d been in and out of sleep for an hour, unable to slow my mind. The sound of my father’s feet coming upstairs to the spare bedroom – the room with Mum’s sewing machine, some of my old books and boxes of toys – told me what had happened before Dad spoke the words, ‘Tim, Mum has just died.’
We’d been with Mum a couple of hours earlier at the rest home. I felt so overwhelmed with emotion at seeing her so weakened, I could barely get a word out. We said we’d see her tomorrow – perhaps we thought we would.
It’s a miracle I made it to see her at all. A couple of days earlier, I was with my wife Aimee and our two children Riley, then four, and Austin, almost one. We were in the rainforests of Southern Queensland’s Lamington National Park.
We knew Mum, who was 77, was going downhill and unlikely to make it until Christmas, but this was June 2024 and we still felt there’d be time.
Mum had always been quite the adventurer. As a child, her thing was climbing trees. And as an adult, the life she and Dad built had them living everywhere from Auckland to Dunedin, Scotland to Malaysia.
That Scottish chapter for John and Jenny Roxborogh pre-dates me and my sister Katie. Regardless, I always loved watching the old slides of ’70s-era Mum and Dad, now 79, and their then two children, Rachel, 53, and Joanna, 51. Mum was into clothes in a humble, op-shoppy, make-it-yourself kind of way. And everything must always match! She looked so cool in the ’70s.
By the end of the decade, we’d relocated back to New Zealand in Wellington. There, Katie, now 45, arrived and two years later, me in 1981.
But one OE was not enough for my parents. So in 1983, they packed up their four children between one and 11, and headed for the steamy Southeast Asian metropolis of Kuala Lumpur. There, we’d stay for nearly eight years. The memories are vivid – jungle and skyscrapers side by side, watermelon every day, the smell of satay and night markets, endless sunshine, fat equatorial rain, geckos on walls, swimming in friends’ pools, Hash House Harriers monthly runs [a non-competitive running club], Lazy Susans at restaurants, red packets for Chinese New Year, Christmas in the tropics, Sunday church, road trips in our yellow van. And Mum in every memory.
Malaysia instilled in me a love of travel and exploring. It’s why we were on the Gold Coast last year. The joy Mum got seeing the videos we sent back of Riley on a 185-metre zipline at O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat is something I’ll forever cherish.
We could’ve cancelled that trip, but we thought we had time. And Mum wanted us to have the adventures she’d had. Which brings us to last Christmas and New Year.
I’d been offered cricket commentary for TVNZ, including a week in Cromwell for games down the road that is State Highway 8 to Alexandra. I didn’t want to leave Aimee and the kids behind for the final days of 2024. Central Otago is too beautiful to do on your own.
With Dad only a few hours away in Dunedin, we invited him too, as well as Katie and my nephew Max, who also live in Dunedin. Then next came an invitation to Joanna, who was planning to visit Dad then anyway.
The only person missing was Rachel, who lives in England. And Mum.
So much of what matters most in life are the people we share it with and the memories we make.
We sure made memories during that week in Cromwell. Between cricket games, we rode part of the Otago Central Rail Trail, picked cherries, played mini golf, raced cars at Highlands Park, picnicked by the lake and spent time together. Mum would’ve been happy.
Growing up, we weren’t a big ‘I love you’ kind of family. But I told Mum exactly that at the rest home through streaming tears.
Her first cancer diagnosis was almost 20 years earlier, but through every setback there was a triumph. She just kept going, so much longer than we ever could have believed. And yet still nowhere near as long as I hoped. I thought there might be more time.
I touched down at Dunedin Airport late afternoon on June 17 and drove straight to the rest home, making it only hours before Mum slipped away. A miracle.
My wife says Mum held on to see me. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know I’m so lucky with the women in my life. And through our wonderful kids, Jenny Roxborogh will live on.”
Listen to Tim on Sunday Night Talk, Newstalk ZB 8pm-11pm Sundays.
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