On the walls of the East Coast Bays Rugby clubroom, amongst framed pictures of hallowed players who went on to become famous All Blacks, is a photo of another star: Hollie Beattie.
She didn’t play rugby for long, but the nine-year-old made a lasting impact on others, mostly for her bravery, resilience and spunk. Hollie passed away last May from a rare, aggressive form of cancer called neuroblastoma.
Before her death, she made headlines when Kiwis generously donated more than $600,000 to send her to Spain, where a trial treatment targeted the cancer in her brain and spinal fluid. Sadly, it didn’t give the family the potential cure they had hoped for.
“Neuroblastoma is a really tough one to beat and we knew the odds were stacked against us,” tells Hollie’s mum Johanna, 43. “But we had to try. And we don’t regret going because it gave us an extra year and a half with her.”
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Eight months on, the grieving family – including dad John, 49, and son William, 12 – are slowly adjusting to their new normal without their gorgeous girl, who they “miss desperately”.
They’re coping by finishing Hollie’s art projects, keeping busy with work and William’s numerous sporting activities. Understandably, the quiet times are the worst.
“Anytime you’re on your own, like driving to and from work, is awful,” shares Jo, who is back working full-time at the University of Auckland. “So I listen to podcasts and audio books in the car to keep my mind occupied with other things.
“You get so much support all the way through from Starship Hospital and Child Cancer Foundation, but we didn’t realise how much support you get afterwards too.
“They’re always checking in on the three of us. I still see the psychologist from Starship and a few months ago even had a call from Hollie’s oncologist too. Everyone still cares.”
Chatting from their home on Auckland’s North Shore, Jo and John show a video on their phone of Hollie sitting in her hospital bed doing her much-loved Harry Potter Lego and rocking out to The Jackson 5 hit Blame it on the Boogie. It still makes them all laugh.
“She was really funny,” tells William, who was “super- close” to his younger sister and chose to share a bedroom with her. “She’d be halfway through chemo and dancing up the corridor with her IV pole. She always made people smile.”
Regardless of her pain. Hollie always had a smile.
Hollie was first diagnosed with neuroblastoma in July 2018. The cancer – which is usually picked up in infancy – showed itself when she was aged five. Jo tells her first symptoms were nose bleeds, fatigue and aching legs, which they initially dismissed as growing pains.
After two years of treatment for the disease, the young Torbay Primary student had the all-clear for six months. But, unfortunately, it wasn’t to last. A three-centimetre tumour was then found in her brain.
Following two stem-cell transplants and radiation therapy, an “overwhelming” fundraising effort raised enough money to get Hollie to Spain on a trial of radioimmunotherapy treatment. She and mum Jo flew to Barcelona in January 2021.
However, in April their worst fears were realised when the cancer in Hollie’s bone marrow relapsed and she had to be removed from the trial.
The impact on the family left them devastated once again, but this time they were apart and unable to support each other in person.
“What we thought would be a four-month stay in Spain, ended up being 10 months,” tells Jo, who adds that all of the fundraising money was used. “And we came home in November.”
For the most part though, Hollie never acted like a girl who had cancer. In between treatments in Spain, she would hang upside down on the playground’s monkey bars and Jo would think, “How
have you got the strength?”
Hollie in Queenstown with her beloved Lamby and family in January 2022.
Adds John, “And less than a week after having brain surgery, she went to her school disco. Her tenacity was amazing.”
Two months before she died, a determined Hollie also made it to her first school camp.
“I can’t believe she did it,” says Jo with tears in her eyes. “She came out of hospital after chemo and begged to go. She didn’t really want me there with her either, I don’t think!
“She had the best time and amazed us all with what she managed to achieve, like reaching the top of the rock- climbing wall and walking up to the lookout for sunset. I can’t imagine the pain she was in at the time, despite taking morphine with us.”
As the family deals with the huge hole which has been left in their world, they hope to honour Hollie’s memory by doing something “adventurous” for her every year on her birthday.
“She was a little adrenaline-junkie and daredevil, really,” says John. “She was definitely the bravest out of all of us. She did all the ziplines around the country that she could and was the first one to put her hand up for parasailing.”
William adds, “She really wanted to go bungy jumping and sky diving too, but wasn’t heavy or old enough.
“But when we do those things for her, we’ll take her soft toy Lamby with us so it’s like we’re taking a piece of her with us.”
