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Honouring Hazel – Australia says goodbye to a national treasure

Universally loved, the soft-spoken, piano playing, mother of four was described as integrity personified, writes Holly Richardson.

Honouring Hazel - Australia says goodbye to a national treasure“Former First Lady Hazel Hawke found a unique place in the hearts of Australians. She provided real leadership in her personal and her public life. Somehow, she was always in step with the particular challenges of the times. Never more so, than ten years ago when she stared down another taboo and appeared on Australian Story to reveal she had Alzheimer’s disease” – Ita Buttrose

“Hazel was the ant’s pants, she was the brightest button I’ve ever known.” – Roslyn Dillon

What Ita says here so eloquently reflects the sentiments of many Australians. In death, Hazel has achieved something she would have been proud of, a nation-wide focus on a disease that is gripping a generation.

Universally loved, the soft-spoken, piano playing, mother of four will always be a First Lady in the eyes of Australia. Close friend Wendy McCarthy reflected that, “Hazel Hawke always felt like the nation’s long suffering mum with wisdom to spare, and forgiveness in her bones.”

Hazel Hawke died aged 83 on May 23 of this year, after succumbing to dementia.

Eldest daughter, Sue Pieters-Hawke, said she was positive until the very end. “In Mum’s last week there was the occasional lucid comment. “She looked at me and really focused and she held my hand and she gave me a beaming smile and said… ‘lovely’.

“There was just so much love in the room. In the hour before Mum died we’d put on a CD and the lead track on it was Amazing Grace and it came on and we all got tingling and for that last hour those hymns were playing. It was beautiful.”

Hazel’s youngest daughter, Roslyn Dillon, likes to remember her before the dementia; “Hazel was the ant’s pants, she was the brightest button I’ve ever known.”

At the memorial, Hazel’s youngest grandchild, Ben Pieters-Hawke, also spoke of his grandmother’s wisdom. “She astounded me one election year when she said, ‘When it comes to voting, think very carefully about your options, and if you think the Liberals are the better party to govern, vote Liberal. If Labor, vote Labor. It’s your duty to make sure you vote with care’. “That stuck with me, because being the wife of a Labor Prime Minister, you can imagine you’d think she’d want you to vote Labor.

“A friend of mine said she was integrity personified, and that’s true.”

On the ABC’s Australian Story, which aired in 2003, Bob Hawke reflected the early years were hard on his wife; “I often behaved badly in drink. “Certainly my judgment of priorities was often perverted and I frittered away hours that could have been spent with Hazel and the children.”

Hazel remained tough and resourceful, and loyal to the end, daughter Roslyn going on to say, “Dad was there for the fun times but he wasn’t a hands-on dad. “She mowed the lawns, she fixed tap washers, she just did everything. “And, to this day, I send her father’s day cards. “We always knew that no matter what, our mother was there for us. “Didn’t matter where she was, what she was, anything. “She was Mum, Dad, God, everything to us.”

Her loneliness and pain was amplified by the birth of a severely brain-damaged boy Robert Jnr, who lived for just four days. Hazel had said of the experience that the, “Loss of a baby is very tough. A full-term, beautiful baby, whom I never saw or held… that still leaves me with a sense of loss.”

Often alone bringing up the three children while Bob was working, drinking, or infamously womanising, she was frequently challenged by women wanting to know why she put up with it. At Hazel’s book launch in 1992, a reporter asked “I’m sure Bob you won’t mind, if I say there are lots of us here who can’t imagine why she stayed in the marriage for so long…” to which Hazel answered (after the laughter subsided) that “It’s a love story which supports the saying ‘True love never goes smoothly’.”

Close friend Wendy McCarthy knows that despite this Hazel never would have left him. In 1995, when he divorced Hazel after almost 40 years of marriage, McCarthy said; “I felt her sadness when it was over, because it clearly had mattered deeply to have a successful family, and a marriage was part of that. “But there also was an opportunity to have her own space and her own freedom. “So there was a happiness and an excitement about that, that I felt in many ways balanced the pain at the end, at the final end. “Hazel in her last decade has had a remarkable life.”

In 2001 Hazel was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. She publicly announced her affliction on TV to raise awareness of the condition and to gain publicity for a fund she had jointly set up with Alzheimer’s Australia. McCarthy said of that time, it was “…my 60th birthday party, and I was very conscious of people saying to me that Hazel had short-term memory loss but I was having a nice time, so I didn’t notice. “You know, when you’re in your 60s anyway a lot of people have short-term memory loss, so you don’t fuss about it. “And I said, tell me how it was demonstrated and somebody said, ‘Well, you know, we’d be sitting talking to Hazel and known her for 20 years and she’d say ‘Have I met you?’. And I felt, I felt as though my heart just dropped into my guts really…”

And so began Hazel’s battle with dementia and its stigma. The CEO of Alzheimer’s Australia, Glenn Rees, told The Retiree magazine: “Hazel was determined not to let dementia takeover her life or defeat her. “People diagnosed with dementia often say they feel devalued and discriminated against from the moment of their diagnosis, for example, in respect of accessing medical and other services. “They are likely to sense a change in their relationships with friends and relatives. “A consequence of a diagnosis is social isolation, as friends and relatives avoid what they might perceive as the awkwardness, or embarrassment, of communicating with someone who may have difficulty recalling what they have said a few moments ago, or finding the words they need to express themselves.”

Hazel refused to accept this reality. “People are not devalued by cancer so why should they be devalued by Alzheimer’s disease?” asked Rees.

Knowing her mother all too well, daughter Sue said she knew at the time she would get up and fit the stigma attached to her disease. “Mum’s somebody who has never wanted to buy labels. “You know labels diminish a person.”

Ita Buttrose, President of Alzheimer’s Australia and Australian of the Year, praised Hazel’s contribution to campaigning for a cure. “Her courage to speak openly about her dementia journey has left a lasting legacy in raising the profile of Alzheimer’s disease and reducing the strong sense of isolation that thousands of Australians with dementia experience.” Eventually the family could care for her no longer. Heartbreakingly, in the year that followed her going into a home, she stopped recognising them completely.

“Hazel Hawke always felt like the nation’s long suffering mum with wisdom to spare, and forgiveness in her bones.”
– Wendy McCarthy

Eldest grandchild, David Dillon, said that while sad, they still saw this as a chance to raise awareness about dementia. “The people who work (in the care facility where Hazel was cared for the last four years) are modern-day heroes, and the lengths they go to are extraordinary. “They really cared for my grandmother. “This is an opportunity for people to fight for what she fought for, and raise awareness of the disease.”

When her health finally deteriorated, daughter Sue said the decline was rapid; “Mum had a stroke, and then three or four days after that she worsened, and at that point, we were told that she was in the palliative stage of dementia. “While it was a very sad time, it was also a very beautiful time and ah, we just, we weren’t going to leave her alone at all and we didn’t, and we only hope and feel that that helped her, we know it was really very special for us. “We had pictures around the room, and we had candles and flowers and music, a lot of music.”

Rees said Hazel’s advocacy for people with dementia would never be forgotten. “My memory of that time is of a person who did not hesitate to act to increase the awareness of the disease and to commit to providing hope for the future through investing in dementia research. “Hazel was passionate about the importance of research and gave her name to the Hazel Hawke Alzheimer’s Research and Care Fund. “The family has been wonderfully supportive in carrying out her wishes. “There are no simple solutions, but Alzheimer’s Australia believes the best way of increasing awareness is for social action that results in the engagement of people with dementia in every day life.”

If you wish to donate to the Hazel Hawke Alzheimer’s Research and Care Fund, please call the fund’s national office on 02 6254 4233.

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Alana Lowes

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