The beauty of death: A final gift

Four days before she died, Jo McKenzie-McLean spoke to friend and colleague Colleen O’Hanlon, and imparts a gift she wasn’t expecting. By Nadine Roberts.

The breathless voice drifts and words fall. Some are caught and held tightly between two friends who know this will be their last conversation as they sit side by side, hand in hand.

Others are unspoken but understood. They tell of a fierce fight to live and to love.

They also tell the story of Jo McKenzie-McLean, a 45-yearold journalist, mother, daughter, partner, friend and narrator of the brutal reality of cancer.

Fate was cruel to McKenzie-McLean.

After a two-year battle with her doctor, despite irregular bowel movements, and an uncle and nana who both had bowel cancer, she was finally diagnosed. But it was too late.

And that’s when McKenzie-McLean’s doggedness became her greatest asset as she sought to reduce the stigma surrounding the condition.

She turned to colleague and friend Colleen O’Hanlon, and bared all in the six-part podcast, Jo v Cancer.

It was tough. McKenzie-McLean had to record around treatment, exhaustion and her desire to spend as much time as she could with her two children, her partner and her parents – not to mention the hundreds of friends she shared her journey with on social media.

Throughout, the pair laughed raucously, and sometimes cried. Everyone involved in the podcast knew how important these moments were. She wanted us to change our conversations about cancer – she wanted the bowel screening age to be lowered, and most of all she wanted to show her kids how hard she fought to stay.

For O’Hanlon, McKenzie-McLean’s generosity in sharing her intimate journey was a gift – and one where she saw herself as being the vehicle to a wider audience.

But as this year progressed, the usually frenetic friend began to fade – albeit slowly at first.

Used to McKenzie McLean’s bullish optimism, O’Hanlon also talked her through sadness and grief off the microphone, as her health deteriorated.

Even then, when told by Dunedin-based medical oncologist Chris Jackson that she needed to make the most of the time she had left, McKenzie McLean refused to succumb.

Instead, she went to Japan with friends, Fiji with her kids, and she went on a roadie trip in the South Island not long before she died.

She had even planned a trip to Amsterdam in July to meet family, but with her white blood cell count dropping, she had to end the chemotherapy that had been prolonging her life.

There was always hope her white blood cells might begin to recover, but it soon became apparent that time was running out.

In her final recording, four days before she died, she struggles to enunciate what it is she’s feeling, but battles on to share her last wishes.

“That’s what it’s become now … breaking down those walls and being like, ‘I love you so much’,” she says through tears.

“I’ve spent so long trying to be strong and being … this isn’t going to get me, but now it looks like it’s going to get me I think,” she says slowly, as the medication takes over. “Now the focus is on articulating those feelings I’ve been burying a bit … I love you. I’ve always loved you,” she says of her kids and her family.

Jackson last saw his patient at her home. She was still larger than life and an ‘absolute joy to be around’. “She laughed, loved and lived big.”

By then Jo v Cancer had been lauded by many in the cancer fraternity, and Jackson believes it will continue to touch many. “She helped demystify a lot of what goes on in cancer.”

While her final recording proves a tough listen that is poignant and raw, it is ultimately true to her desire to be honest about what she was experiencing.

And as the day fades, McKenzie-McLean does too. Every moment, every drink that is passed to her is acknowledged with love and gratitude. It’s meaningful, in the world that is her Cromwell lounge and O’Hanlon sees something she’s never seen before.

“She showed me the beauty that can come with death.”

Tired, McKenzie-McLean boxes on, and finishes with a message that epitomised her entire life.

“I want people to be like … think about not holding back on that kindness and just being … not holding back on words and showing that kindness.”