When Auckland health coach Sylvia Philcox was asked to attend a hospital meeting about her late mother Ai Sukaesih’s cancer treatment, she knew it wasn’t going to be good news.
She and her partner Lukas Phan-huy had taken Ai into Auckland Hospital on 5 October last year as she was struggling to breathe. Doctors found a tumour in Ai’s neck and by the 11th, they had diagnosed her with thyroid cancer.
“Initially, they thought she had papillary thyroid cancer, which is the most survivable,” says Sylvia. “So there was some hope that she could have surgery to remove it. She was telling the doctors about how she’d like to keep the tumour to show her children.”
Then on Friday 14 October, Sylvia was asked to go to a meeting room. “I was like, ‘Oh, no, this was what happened with Dad,'” shares Sylvia. Her father Duncan, who had Parkinson’s disease, tragically died in 2014 after he lost his balance and hit his head on the corner of a table.
Sylvia steeled herself for news about complications with performing surgery on 60-year-old Ai, but what she was told was far worse. Wiping away tears, Sylvia tells, “They said, ‘She’s got anaplastic thyroid cancer. She’s got days to live.’ We broke down. It was such a shock.”
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Doctors wanted to keep Ai in hospital until the Monday, but Sylvia asked for her to be discharged that Friday as there was no time to spare. “I was like, ‘No way, she’s coming home tonight!'”
To say that Sylvia and her mum were exceptionally close is an understatement. “I’m 33 years old,” tells Sylvia. “She lived with me for 31 of those 33 years and when we didn’t live with each other, we saw each other up to four times a week and we called each other every day.”
Ai (with baby Sylvia) and her daughter shared a life-long bond.
She describes her mum as “incredibly nurturing, always putting others before herself”.
Ai, who was one of 13 children, met Sylvia’s dad Duncan at a wedding in Indonesia and uprooted her life to move with him to New Zealand in 1983.
“Only five of the children in Mum’s family got to go to school,” tells Sylvia. “She had to work so she could go to school. When she came here, she worked hard as a cleaner so she could send money back to them. She always looked after everyone.”
On the Saturday after they got home from hospital, Sylvia decided to do something for Ai. She said to Lukas, 30, “I’ve got a really interesting idea. We love each other a lot. Shall we…”
He replied, “Get married?”
When the couple told Ai, she was delighted, saying, “This is what I wanted in my heart.”
Sylvia adds, “She was so happy. Mum actually loved Lukas before I did. She met him on our first date because we were living together. She told me, ‘He’s the one.'”
Sylvia and Lukas set about organising the ceremony. “I think the wedding helped her hold on, having this glimmer of hope and something to live longer for,” Sylvia notes. “We planned it for the 29th of October. Every day, my heart was like, ‘Is she going to make it?’ If she didn’t, I would be even more destroyed, so it was risky.”
Friends and family pitched in with food and decorations, and Ai helped Sylvia find the perfect frock. “Mum adored thrift shopping. We found a dress that was almost a perfect fit, and what was even more beautiful is Mum was under palliative care under Hospice West Auckland and that money went to a hospice shop.”
On the big day, severe thunderstorms were forecast, but the sun came out at the ceremony and a proud Ai was able to walk her beautiful daughter down the aisle.
Having Ai at their nuptials meant the world to Sylvia and Lukas.
“She gave us her blessing,” tells Sylvia. “We didn’t want to put too much on her – we just wanted to make sure she was a part of it but didn’t have to do too much in case she got too tired. It was a magical day.”
Ai passed away peacefully 12 days after her girl’s wedding.
“The doctors were surprised by how long she lasted,” says Sylvia. “She remained positive and accepting. That was inspirational. Every day, she would say, ‘It’s OK, everyone dies.’ From the get-go, she was this beacon of hope and positivity, and that’s what kept us going. Every day, we got to spend with her, we were making wonderful memories.”
