Warren Kwok
2/10/2013
We are here today to remember and celebrate my mothers life and for me to marvel at how extraordinary she lead her life, and made my life a richer one.
Mum and Dad gave Martin and I everything and particularly during our time in Hong Kong exposed us to a rich and diverse world.
In saying that Mum was always particularly insistent to ensure that we were not over spoilt and that we were well grounded and followed good family values.
An example of this would be that despite us having an Ahma in HK we would still have to make our own beds and do the dishes.
In my mind Mum was a very practical and realistic person who liked things tidy, clean and orderly and didn’t like others doing things for her since she had her own way of doing things and wanted them done her way, which meant only she could do it.
I am often told by my wife, Carol and others that know me that I have certain characteristics that are like my mother.
This naturally annoys me as like most children, they hate the thought that they are like their parents.
On reflection however I realize that I do have a lot of Mums annoying traits and habits, so I guess that makes me annoying as well.
I am not really one to linger or think about the past, but prefer to look more at the present and to the future. However in the past few days I naturally have been thinking of the past and the good times that Mum gave us.
Some of the best family years that I felt we had were in Hong Kong. This is because we had more family time together when we were there, and also because of all the wonderful family trips that Mum and Dad took us on.
Mum truly loved it in Hong Kong and also took this opportunity to travel to those places she had always wanted to go like Tibet and Nepal.
I sometimes think that she was more at home living in Hong Kong surrounded by Chinese, than in New Zealand surrounded by corcaseans.
As already mentioned Mum was more Chinese than many of us, and my cousin Cheryl summed this up nicely in an email tribute to my mother where she stated that “only afew weeks ago she was joking with my mother that she (Cheryl) was a banana – yellow on the outside and white on the inside, and that mum was an egg – white on the outside and yellow on the inside. Mum quietly corrected her saying – “I am not yellow, I am not white – I am Chinese”!!!
Mum achieved a lot in her life but I never saw her boasting or drawing attention to her accolades and achievements.
She was quite happy just getting the job done and moving on to the next task.
It therefore came as no surprise to me when someone discovered unknown to us that Mums name was on the Wellington Hospital Honour’s List Wall just downstairs from where she was warded.
Another interesting fact that my Aunt Elaine bought to our attention during Mums final days at Wellington Hospital was that the EENT Ward where Mum and Dad meet was literally within the same block as the Ward where Mum spent her final days.
I guess for me one of the most important things that Mum taught me was to cherish family and respect my elders.
I guess the respect my elders part was sometimes hard for me, particularly when I often found myself disagreeing or became annoyed by Mums “Ways”.
As for the family part, I am happy to say that I am very proud to be a husband and father to a beautiful wife and two wonderful children; and that I believe that my being a good father is all thanks to my Mums influence and upbringing.
Even though Mum is no longer here in body, as they say she will always be with us in spirit, and for me I feel this will always be the case in the things that I think and do; for example just yesterday I was looking at Mum and Dads driveway and thought Mum would want these leaves cleared, so I was compelled to go out and start sweeping.
I felt that her strength was often in her actions and not in her words, and this is how she often showed her love and concern.
For me that will always be how I remember Mum.
Always “Doing” for other, never needing or wanting praise, and soldiering on till the very end.
I would now like to invite Mum’s two grand daughters (Nyah and Ruby) up to say a-few words.
Frank Kwok
29/09/2013
The first time I met Nanette was when she was the Supervising Sister in the EENT (Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat) Ward when I was a Registrar, so we both ran the EENT ward together.
She was elegant and beautiful, but what I noticed most was how she especially cared for the elderly and children.
When she fractured her leg skiing, I’m sure that she would have been the only Patient ever admitted to Wellington Hospital to the only private room in the EENT ward under me. The orthopaedic staff had to come up to our ward to care for her!
As a theatre sister she routinely scrubbed up with me to assist at the Senior Consultants operations. So under the drapes we would secretly hold hands.
When we were required to work late at night, I would drive her home to Paraparaumu, where she lived with her parents at the time.
My first real date out with Nanette was to the Wellington Opera House playing one of the first Chinese troupes from China performing Cantonese Opera. That evening, was one I will cherish forever. Incidentally she actually enjoyed the performance more than I did!
It was 13 years from when we first met before we were finally engaged.
You have to understand that at that time back in the 1950s & 60s mixed marriages were widely frowned upon. This explains the 13 years during which we had reluctantly but mutually decided we would each seek a spouse of the same race. However, thankfully after the 13 years when we were often living separately, working overseas and studying in different countries, we finally came together again in London eventually returning to Wellington in the 60s. We were engaged in late 1965 and married in 1966.
Nanette’s understanding of Chinese culture surprised who ever she met. For 8 years my family lived in HK when I was invited by the HK Medical & Health Department to update and reorganize their ENT services. Frequently I would be told by the locals and particularly by my staffs families that Nanette was “more Chinese than we are”.
Nanette studied Chinese painting and Cantonese during those 8 years, which we both have agreed were the best years of our lives
When we returned to Wellington in 1989, I became a Senior Consultant at Wellington Hospital and Nanette worked with me in Private Practice whenever a Nurse-Receptionist was not available.
During our years in Private Practice here in Wellington, and in true Chinese traditional fashion, Nanette organized the flat above our Surgery for her Mother Mrs. Edith Wallis, whilst my own Mother and Father’s house was directly behind our Clinic. By doing this, Nanette was able to care for both our parents before and when they passed away.
Her wonderful care and attention to my parents in their final years was something my sisters and I will never forget.
As the only son of 10 children, I have been “head of the Kwok family” for some time now, but in reality Nanette became the rock which anchored us together as “head of the Kwok family. All of my 9 sisters would tell me that Nanette was a real sister to them and all agreed that she truly was their “head sister”.
Furthermore, during our 48 years of marriage, Nanette continually led an unrelenting search for the Extended Kwok Family throughout the world and compiling of the Family History, knowing and spontaneously remembering 100s of names better than me.
I love you so so much Nanette but I know you will now be in Heaven and you deserve to rest in peace.
Martin Kwok
28/09/2013
(This is a text copy of the Tribute I gave for my mother at her funeral)
Many things have been said about my dear mother here today, all of which make up the sum of our parts, although I doubt we’ll ever have enough time to call it whole.
She was a modest, compassionate, worldly woman – who did things others didn’t have the energy or nerve for, and for that.. she was often well ahead of her time.
So when I tried to figure out how best to encapsulate the essence of Nanette Kwok, my Mum… the word that came to mind and stuck around was “Unbelievable”!
It’s an adjective that works on a number of levels, all of which apply to my memories and perception of my mother.
I can wind back the clock, to when I was a surly teenager and think of how she managed to greatly embarrass me in front of my dear friend Caroline, and in the process embarrass her even further. As it turned out, sitting down at our family dinner table one night, it became apparent that Caroline could not use chopsticks. A preposterous thought in my mother’s mind.. so she ensured that poor Caroline fumbled her way through the meal, on her maiden voyage with chopsticks in hand. “Unbelievable”!... But that was Mum… and something that Caroline, who is now proficient in the use of chopsticks, has thanked her for ever since.
It was “Unbelievable” how she would drag my brother and I, sometimes even Dad into various locations to hunt for flowers and foliage in the name of Ikebana. Public spaces, private properties, beaches, town belts, gardens, tundra filled plateaus – all potentially open season for daytime burglaries, so long as an interesting branch, strange shaped rock, dried up flower or piece of drift wood could be sourced. Us boys would grimace and shake our heads in a familiar “here we go again” way, and generally do as we were told.
In more recent times, I would again find myself feeling like a frustrated teen, when I came home at lunchtime one day to find my Mum up a small stepladder weeding our raised garden bed. I couldn’t believe it!
This activity was never discussed, and was not essential – and if anything the essential discussion of those times was how Mum needed to do less of that sort of thing around her own home, let alone ours.
But her kindness and willingness to tirelessly work away for the many people she loved and chose to help, never ceased and barely slowed… “Unbelievable”!
That triggers a thought of a conversation my cousin Pam and I shared the other day, and how only 3 weeks ago Mum had been making up batches of Lemon Ginger Jam.. which was enthusiastically gobbled up by Pam and her workmates, with requests for the recipe shortly to follow.
But Pam was quite right in saying “Nanette, you shouldn’t be doing that.. you need to be taking it easy”. To which Mum brushed off the concern with ease and not a second thought on the matter.
The bottom line is, she couldn’t help it.. she wanted and needed to be doing these things.. for herself, as much as for others… and, at a point in life where most of us would be raising a white flag and asking for help. “Unbelievable”!
Sometimes she did ask for a bit of help. Like how she would periodically call up my good friend Jeremy and get him to come round and giver her a hand with various things. Things I should have been called to do I thought! “ Oh Mum.. you’re Unbelievable.. Jeremy’s busy!.. Call me” I’d say... But what I now realise is that Nanette and Jeremy had established their own sense of friendship and connection, where I didn’t need to be the middle man anymore.. and that was made apparent to me when Jeremy recently highlighted my Mums strengths to me so succinctly – noting how she has always been so energetic, tough and funny.
Her funny side was not obvious. Never one for punch line jokes, she was all about the slow set up and sustained gag. Almost a prankster! As my wife Gabby mentioned to me yesterday, her penchant and talent for giving hilarious presents to people was a gift unto itself – although sometimes it was lost on the recipients who were left with puzzled looks and wry smiles.
Much like the most memorable birthday present I think I’ve ever received a number of years back.
Mum announced that her present to me was in the fridge. A strange place for it I thought, but I walked over expecting to find a bottle of wine or the like, but instead discovered a perfectly wrapped gift of strange shape, which once unwrapped revealed.. a pineapple. All told, it was an unbelievably tasty pineapple.
And harking back to eras gone by.. The unbelievably inspiring stories of my mother’s intrepid journeys through various countries and continents over the decades have always been a favourite of mine – in the days where ladies just didn’t do that sort of thing. And as travel bugs go.. a reflection of those times was apparently a great inspiration to my friend Suresh – influencing his own drive for discovery and adventure into South America, Europe, Asia and beyond.. Following in my mother’s keen footsteps.
So many unbelievable strengths to my mother’s bow… that is what I’m now left to reflect upon. All of them.. in fact, very believable.. once you know and respect the woman who she was, and the spirit she has always been.
And when I consider the difficult and distressing times which my mother faced in her final weeks, the most unbelievable aspect that I keep coming back to is her immense strength in the face of adversity. Shortly after a number of severe strokes altered her health and our family’s course, we were all told to brace for impact – so much so that the warning went out that there might not be enough time for Warren to return from Singapore.
But Mum would not have a bar of that.. instead, I do believe she managed to turn a few corners on the “one way street” she was placed on, which in turn gave us enough time for the family vigil to occur, whilst also allowing the opportunity for us to begin to honour her, prepare to grieve and appreciate that special time together, not so much in sadness.. but in love and light for the person that Nanette Kwok was and always will be in our hearts.
That outpouring of love and support from our tremendous family and friends, both here and abroad was what gave me strength to get through those tough days. The respect, recognition and adoration laid on my Mum was a rare sight – owing to the fact that you could never get close enough to praise her efforts, as she always busily shuffled off to clean something or prepare another arrangement.
Finally, we could all tell Nanette what we wanted her to hear and know, from our hearts.
Whilst all this was going on in our lives, with the incredible support of our family and the amazing team surrounding my Mum and us at Wellington Hospital, her situation had not changed for the better.
But she managed to conserve her energy beautifully, allowing us the precious time we had to gather and farewell her.. and she confounded some of the Doctors and Nurses with her strength and determination, as she offered us rays of sunshine in the middle of this storm by periodically cheering us up with little comments and assurances that she was alright with where she was… Typical Nanette!.. No fuss and most importantly.. doing it her way.. to the very end… Unbelievable!
Unbelievable strength, unbelievable dignity, unbelievable grace and virtue.
She had all of these in excess, and from this hardship has gifted me with a profound sense of how strong we can be when faced with life’s toughest challenges. For that, I will do my very best to honour her memory for every day of my life to come. Thank you Mum.. you’re unbelievable!
Ken Chung
25/09/2013
Dear Frank and Family
I was very sorry to hear of Nanette's passing.
My mother Doris went to the service but she is hard of hearing. I wondered if you had a copy of the speech/s that I could print for her.
Here is a link to a photo of Nanette from not so long ago that you might like to see.
picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/m2LHujuwnNbR2ILiJvHSc2GCSK35BRL1qis4TsxP4CA?feat=directlinkKind Regards
Ken
