Journals
Monday,May 25 2009, 11:48:52 PMThe funeral of the late Ms. Fuifui Tolua Tufuga
The funeral of the late Fuifui Tolua Tufuga
I would sincerely wish to convey my utmost appreciation for the following people and organisations amongst the Samoan community and the local community of Logan City. The health service provision, the funeral parlour personnel, family and friends of family gathered for the funeral service of my late grandmother Fuifui Tolua Tufuga.
Ms. Fuifui Tolua Tufuga passed away sometime after midnight on the 19th May, 2009, after being admitted into the Logan Hospital some hours earlier. She is dearly missed by her loved ones and she is survived by her sons Mr. Frank Tufuga, Mr. Philip Tolua Burne, and sister, Mrs. Nive Tolua Fanene.
In relation to myself, Ms. Fuifui Tolua Tufuga's first born child, was my late mother, Tumema or Mema Siala Tolua Tufuga, nee, Miss Tumema Siala Tauvae Tuiletufuga.
The youtube video link is available by clicking onto the following link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYvSYAgT13o
I sincerely apologise for not being able to upload more footage however youtube would not permit me to do so.
Therefore, this is the readers digest version and it is impossible to upload more than 10 minutes over youtube.com.
My condolences to the grieving family and my thank you for all who have helped in easing our burden and to allow my late grandma to rest in peace interned within the Beenleigh cemetery.
Peace and fa'afetai lava Samoa.
Tim Tufuga
Tuesday,May 19 2009, 01:15:44 AMThe passing of my Grandma Fuifui Tolua Tufuga.
Fa'ailialiga!
It is with deep regret to announce the passing of the late Ms. Fuifui Tolua Tufuga on the 19th May, 2009.
The grieving family are making preparations for her funeral to be announced in an opportune moment in the near future.
Fa'afetai lava,
Tim Tufuga
grandson.
Monday,May 11 2009, 01:32:53 AMMother's Day 2009
Mother's Day 2009 in Brisbane, Australia.
It is yet another Mother's Day and it has been a time of Oedipal reflections. I had decided along with my sister to go and pay my Grandma a visit. It was an opportune moment to reflect upon our oedipal fond moments for a fleeting moment. I was not really convinced of my nostalgic interlude owing to the fact that my late mother was anything but a perfect mother. She was after all a Samoan mother who endured her own cultural shocking experiences migrating not to one foreign country to settle and to adjust in but to two major migrations. First from Samoa to New Zealand back in the 1960s and then in the early eighties to Brisbane Australia. My mother died in 2002. Her mother, my grandmother, Fuifui Tufuga, on thhe other hand survived and she is now an Octogenerian? Or the exclusive 80s something club. The people born in the roaring twenties when the Great Gatsby was kicking his heals and surving on bootlegging alongside AlCapone. My grandma was born during the roaring twneties alongside the likes of Her Majesty the Queen of England and of Australia for that matter.
Unlike Her Majesty, my grandma has survived a number of strokes and is paralysed on her left side. She is surviving well but is in need of palliative care 24/7. Hence, my grandma is in a nursing home whiling away the remainder of her time. It is a lonely journey having to survive your peers. I had mentioned to her that it is almost pointless to ever ant to return to Samoa because of the obvious fact that she is the only person of her generation still breathing. There are countless tombstones of friends and family in Asau village for her to feel sentimentally nostalgic but amongs the living in her village in Samoa the descendents of her peers remain. It is not a pleasant reality having to feel forever nostalgic which often leads to depression for many aged people, and hastening the transitions from Nursing homes to the morgue and beyond.
Unfortunately for my grandma, her grandchildren are selfish, we are reluctant to allow her to make the transition from us. We are too guilty of being too nostalgic as well. So my grandma has to be tormented with having to remain alive amongst her offsprings. The ails of senility and dementia are the obvious side effects of age but we tend to be selfish by denying ourselves from relinquishing our tyranny of distance from a bygone era, it is to deny our heritage and dare I suggest our history.
In the meantime, we can be defiant against the beckonings of the moribund and wish our grandma a longer life with us. It is boring and tends to test the boundaries of ageist prejudice and intolerance.
I am a marathon runner anyway I have plenty of time to spend a wee time with an old lady, even if she was once a battle axe of yesteryear she is my only surviving grandma today.
Good Day ladies.
Tim Tufuga
Logan City, Australia