Renee Lansdowne
In a quiet seaside home in Tairua on the Coromandel Peninsula, with pods of dolphins and orcas as regular visitors, Brooke Graham is spending her final days.
The mum-of-one’s husband Carrick sits gently holding her hand as she rests under the support of palliative care, while their daughter Mckenzie plays nearby with her bunnies.
Just two months earlier, the longtime real estate agent was admitted to Auckland Hospital’s ICU with debilitating headaches. After numerous CT scans, an MRI and three lumbar punctures, Brooke learnt she has terminal brain cancer. Gut-wrenchingly, it had spread from the breast cancer she thought she’d beaten in 2020 after under-going a mastectomy and six months of chemotherapy.
“On July 31st, we were told she had a month or two left to live at best – at worst, two weeks,” says consultant Carrick, 52, who met his wife through friends 15 years ago.
“Yesterday we thought Brooke was in her final hours, but she remarkably survived the night. She’s had a hell of a last few years, and we’re devastated and heartbroken, but she’s incredibly stoic and has huge strength.”
It was during the first COVID lockdown that Brooke, 43, was first diagnosed with aggressive stage-three breast cancer, which appeared as an 8.5cm lump in her left breast. After an emergency mastectomy, to assist with her recovery, the couple sold their Auckland home and moved to the slow-paced beach town of Tairua, where Brooke’s parents Geoff and Lee live.
“Tairua is Brooke’s happy place and she has holidayed here her entire life,” smiles Carrick. “The community has been amazing with their outpouring of love for us.”
Although the past few years have been a rollercoaster, there have been many joyous moments amid the struggles. Brooke has loved swimming with her family at her favourite spot, Ocean Beach, and has been heavily involved with Mckenzie’s schooling and sports.
“Mckenzie is a free spirit, a spark and a smart, savvy, resilient girl,” tells Carrick. “She’s wise beyond her years and everything to Brooke. She understands Mum’s dying and won’t be with us long, which is heart-wrenching. But she’s handling it remarkably well for a 10-year-old and is surrounded by love.”
The proud mum’s dream was to see her girl on horseback.
The family has also loved getting out for bushwalks in the Coromandel Ranges, where they’ve admired native plants. It was the couple’s appreciation for our indigenous flora and its natural medicinal qualities that inspired their 2019 business venture Te Wai, a hydrating facial mist using artesian water infused with extracts of kawakawa, mānuka, kōwhai, mamaku and pōhutukawa.
“We wanted to capture that essence of being outdoors in New Zealand and the finished goods arrived just four days before we entered the first lockdown,” recalls Carrick, adding that while border closures saved thousands of lives, it stopped the flow of international visitors, who were their target market.
Despite this, Te Wai made it into various leading retailers within the tourism sector, going on to become the most internationally awarded facial spray in both 2021 and 2022.
The animal lover started an award-winning business.
In July this year, when Brooke started having increasingly bad headaches, she and Carrick made multiple trips to hospital. Spinal-fluid tests confirmed the breast-cancer cells had spread to her brain and it was incurable.
Knowing she didn’t have long, the dedicated mum got to work organising important tasks, like enrolling her daughter into her old alma mata, Auckland’s Diocesan School for Girls.
Less than three weeks after her terminal diagnosis, the couple received exciting and uplifting news that Te Wai had won the Highly Commended Award in the cosmetics category at the UK’s esteemed Health and Wellbeing Awards.
Brooke and Carrick’s wish is for Mckenzie to attend her mum’s old school.
As well as ticking off her wish to watch Mckenzie ride a horse along the Tairua Estuary, Brooke also established a Givealittle page she hopes will ensure her daughter’s schooling needs are taken care of.
While she was able, Brooke posted on social media to share her appreciation for donations, letting loved ones know she was happy being able to lie in bed and watch the sunrise from her window.
“Lying awake listening to the rain pouring down is very comforting and cosy,” she wrote. “Especially knowing my family are all tucked up sleeping under one roof.”
Now taking each moment as it comes, Carrick and Mckenzie will eventually return to Auckland, where his parents and support network are.
“I’m losing the most important person,” he says. “She is everything to me. The past 15 years with her have been absolutely wonderful and amazing. She’s an incredible woman and very well loved by lots of people.”
