As loving mum Jonquil Graham leans over and strokes her daughter Natasha’s forehead, she knows in her heart that she must soon say goodbye to the little girl she rescued from a Romanian orphanage 18 years ago.
Jonquil and her husband Bryan brought tiny, malnourished twin sisters Natasha and Joanna back from Eastern Europe, aged 10 months, to raise them at their Takaka home, among their family of adopted and foster kids.
Raising the twins proved to be a true labour of love for the devoted parents, as the girls became rebellious and difficult. Though the girls eventually left home and moved to Nelson, where they were fending for themselves, they continued to maintain a loving bond with their adopted mum and dad.
Seven weeks ago, however, the family received the devastating news that Natasha had been knocked down by a car and taken to intensive care. The 19-year-old suffered massive head injuries from the accident and is now in a coma from which, doctors say, she will not recover.
Even through the shock and pain, Jonquil is managing to draw on the strength that has helped her weather the storms of raising her large brood. “We’ve had hundreds of people come to visit Natasha from all over the country,” she says with a gentle smile. “She was loved by so many people. one person described her as being like a little Christmas tree because she just lit up your day when you saw her.”
Twin sister Joanna, however, is struggling to come to terms with the tragedy. “It was terrible when Joanna came to the hospital,” Jonquil says. “She stood at the foot of the bed wiggling Natasha’s toes and saying, ‘Wake up, wake up. I know you’ll wake up.’ Then she just cried and walked away. It breaks my heart.”
Although the girls grew to be incredibly close, when Jonquil first found them at the orphanage they had been separated for most of their young lives. “They were in the same room but with many other babies,” says Jonquil. “They were all just lying in their beds, doing nothing. A bottle would be placed into their mouths and if it popped out then that was too bad. At nine weeks they weighed only 4kgs – about the same size as a New Zealand newborn. People said we were mad to bring them home, with such a rough start, but soon they were walking and talking.”
That rough start seemed to haunt the girls, even into their teens. A TV documentary about the twins, which aired in February, three weeks before the accident, showed Natasha and Joanna spending their days roaming the streets and staying the night with various friends and acquaintances.
“They didn’t actually live on the streets,” insists Jonquil. “They liked spending time out and about and getting to know people from all walks of life.”
Natasha had recently started finding her way again and was training to be a Maori Warden. “She was going to be helping street kids,” says Jonquil. “After the accident, oP Pita Sharples fast-tracked a Maori Warden badge to her and we had a special ceremony in the hospital. Natasha is the first person in the world to have a tribe named after her – Ngati Romania.”
With Natasha’s life fading by the day, the Grahams have to accept that she will not take on the job she had dreamed of. “She has been taken off life support but she’s been able to breathe on her own,” says Jonquil. “She can manage slight movements but her brain scans show us that all the parts that are Natasha have gone.”
Three years ago Jonquil wrote a book about her experiences of foreign adoptions called How oany Planes To Get oe? She had started writing a sequel which was going to be about taking the girls back to Romania, as part of their healing from the past.
“I felt they needed to know where they came from and we were getting things in place for a trip next year. I didn’t think that the last chapter was going to be about burying my daughter,” says Jonquil softly.
The brave mum will complete her book in the hope that it will help others coping with similar trauma. “It’s going to be about raising adopted teenagers and it will be written with humour and warmth. But there will be a chapter about what it’s like to lose a child, and it will celebrate a kid who was unconventional – my gorgeous Natasha. Having Natasha for 18 years has been amazing, even though I now have to let her go.”
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