Dancing for hospice [Новость добавлена - 28.03.2008]

Gavin Fleming was the last person that Tina Cross would have thought would ever get cancer.

Although an upbeat attitude and positive outlook are no insurance policy against the disease, Tina says she couldn’t believe that at just 34 Gavin was struck down with endocrine cancer – one of the most deadly forms of the disease.

But if Tina, 49, hadn’t witnessed the support provided by the local hospice to Gavin and his young family in Howick, east Auckland, she may never have been a contestant in this year’s Dancing with the Stars.

‘The deciding factor for me doing the show was Gavin. When I was thinking about it someone said you can help a charity I knew instantly I wanted to help hospice which had provided nursing care for him towards the end of his terminal illness.’

This is the first time a celebrity has chosen Hospice New Zealand for their charity, and Tina wants to destroy any illusion that hospice mainly cares for older people.

Gavin was just 35 when he died, leaving his wife Vanessa and two children aged three and five.

As a protégé of Tina’s husband Wayne Sullivan, she had known Gavin for 15 years,

‘Gavin is the last person that I thought would get sick and die from an illness. That’s because he was a very vibrant, up and coming, a very switched on guy – very family and career orientated.

‘I saw how his illness really affected Wayne. He was quite different particularly during Gavin’s last six months. He took it hard. I suppose it’s a bit like losing your on own child – they’re not supposed to go before you.

‘Gavin was a really vibrant and energised type of guy,’ the mum of two says. He was very funny. He was a real live wire and very, very fit and able. When he was diagnosed I thought this can’t be happening to him – not Gavin.’

His first symptom of the disease was back pain. When he was diagnosed his prognosis was grim but he rallied and survived for more than a year.

Tina asked Gavin’s family if she could sing at his funeral and chose the song Show Me Heaven and a song that she had already sung for him during a private performance in his final months.

‘He was amazed. He said to me at the time, “having you in my lounge, close up is quite bizarre really”. “I love having you singing to me it’s like my own private concert " but it was the one thing I could personally give to him.

‘When he did die in May 2006, I rang Vanessa and asked to sing at his funeral. In the last five years I’ve actually sung at five funerals but this is the first time I’ve invited myself to sing. I wanted to do it for Gav one last time.’

Tina believes in life after death and was brought up an Anglican after her grandfather became a church minister when he miraculously survived cancer at the age of 61 despite being given three months to live.

‘He was lying in the hospital bed and saw a pamphlet about putting your faith in Jesus Christ, and that’s what he did and he fought the cancer. He survived until he was 87 years old. The doctors couldn’t believe the cancer never came back,’ Tina recalls.

‘He said to me many times if you put faith in something – you can actually do it.’

After years of experience in music and theatre, Tina is a natural on the dance floor but she has never had lessons and is on a steep learning curve under her dance partner, Aaron Gilmore’s guidance.

‘I’ve never been to a class or private tuition. I have had choreographers tell me what to do. My daughter has been doing jazz and hip hop for eight years and that’s what I would call dance lessons and that’s what I never had because my parents couldn’t afford it. I never had singing lessons during my early career either.

‘I learned by osmosis but unfortunately the public have a perception that I’m already a dancer. I have been a performer – that’s my advantage – there’s a presentation that you learn from being a live performer.

‘I’ve had to unlearn a whole lot of stuff and it’s actually been quite difficult. But if I can help hospice in any way then it will have been worthwhile.’

http://www.hospice.org.nz/dancing-for-hospice/