I am Natasha’s younger sister, also known as her “head nurse“.
I’ve had the privilege of spending every single night with her for the last five months. Who can say that? In my thirties. Maybe when you’re younger, yes, you spend every single night with your siblings. But she gave me that opportunity. She literally did give me that opportunity. Because when my siblings called to see if I could come down. She fought. She fought against it. She was so independent. She thought that she could take care of herself. She thought that my husband and my son, needed me to be there with them, and she didn’t want to take me away from them. Because of my being away. But I was with her for those five months. It wasn’t easy, not at all. I thought growing up with her was hard, the last five months was harder. But she meant well by it.
The first night that I came home, because of the time difference, I’m six hours ahead, I came home, she made me put my covers on the floor and then lay right next to her and I was supposed to stay up with her all night but I went right to sleep. And then I heard her telling my mom, “This one down here is waste time!” (loud laughter)
So, I heard her, I got up just that second. So I thought if she thinks I’m a waste time I’m just gonna sleep till tomorrow. So the first couple of nights, yes I had to catch up to her sleeping pattern and towards the end I got to tell her, “this one right here is waste time cause I was up all night and she was sleeping”.
Tasha is, like my brother said, very organized, and very picky unlike the rest of us. So it was very hard for me at four o’clock in the morning when she wanted her things in order for me to get them and to put them the way she wanted. I was going through her things and I found a poem and I had asked her what this was. And she said this is what describes me. So I’m gonna read this:
"The main reason I became a teacher is that I like being the first one to introduce kids to words and music and people and numbers and concepts and idea that they have never heard about or thought about before. I like being the first one to tell them about Long John Silver and negative numbers and Beethoven and alliteration and "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning" and similes and right angles and Ebenezer Scrooge. . . Just think about what you know today. You read. You write. You work with numbers. You solve problems. We take all these things for granted. But of course you haven't always read. You haven't always known how to write. You weren't born knowing how to subtract 199 from 600. Someone showed you. There was a moment when you moved from not knowing to knowing, from not understanding to understanding. That's why I became a teacher.
(Quote by Phillip Done, a 3rd grade teacher)
Tasha loved teaching, she loved her coworkers, she loved her students even more. And we could tell by all their visits, up until the end. Her students who are now in high school came to visit her came to bring her things and came to show her their work that they’ve accomplished due to her teachings. Her showing them first how to do it or how to do it right. She also loved her friends back here. They were her ladies in waiting.
Like my brother, at times when she thought I wasn’t making the right choices, I wasn’t doing the right things, she would come to me and say, "Come on get ready, lets go."
Like where are we going? We’re going with my friends. So off I go to do whatever her and her friends had to do. Because everything that she knew she was going to do with her friends were of moral standards, were a good example to me and something that I could remember her by.
She also had a love for our Heavenly Father and the gospel. As Vili said Tasha was very organized and a perfectionist and she left us a goodbye note. And in her note, part of her note she says,
“Please never forget that Heavenly Father will never give us anything we can not handle. Too bad he thinks I can handle a lot. I wish he thought I couldn’t handle so I could stick around for a long time. But you do what you have to do. I love you, I love our Savior, I love the gospel. I’m grateful for all the love I’ve had. I’ve had a wonderful life.
She was a true example. She did not get to go on a mission but her mission was here to share the gospel and the teachings and just her presence.
I want to share with you one story. One her last day in the hospital we had a meeting with a chaplain, a doctor, a nurse, a Social worker just so we could transition her from the hospital to home. And everyone had questions. She had a list of questions for them and they answered it.
And then it came to the chaplain and he asked her of what faith she was and she said I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints, have you heard of them? And he said, yes I have, I have.
Are then he asked her, “Are you angry, are you mad? What are you feeling?
And with a smile on her face she said I’m happy, I can deal with it. The Lord wouldn’t give me anything if I couldn’t handle this.
And he kept tugging and pulling at her saying aren’t you mad at God, Don’t you just hate him right now for everything that you’re going through?
And with the same smile on her face she said my older brother has been through worse pain. This is nothing. And the chaplain looked at her and said I can tell that you are such a good example to everyone that you teach, everyone that you meet, just everyone in your life. And that’s what Tasha was. She loved the gospel, she loved her family, she really loved these ladies in pink and Keawe. He’s wearing a pink tie.
And on behalf of our family and Tasha we’d like to thank everyone for all your love and support through this ordeal.
And I really love my parents for raising such a wonderful sister that I had.
I am so proud that I can say that Natasha was my older sister. She is still my older sister, and I love her very much.
And I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ , Amen.
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