Nurse for forty years, mother of three, and never once early to anything.
Pat nursed at Dunedin Hospital for forty years, mostly nights, mostly the wards no one else wanted. She said the trick to a night shift was to never look at the clock before three. She held a lot of hands in the dark.
At home she was chaos — always late, always halfway through three things, always with a casserole for someone whose week had gone wrong. The three kids learned to find their own shoes. They also learned that anyone who turned up at the door got fed, no questions, and that has stuck.
She laughed like a drain, cried at adverts, and could not keep a plant alive to save herself. The garden was Barry's. She would bring him tea and tell him he had planted it wrong.
She died in May, at home, with all three of them there and the back door open. She would have been late for it if she could.