Tighe

 Tighe lived your life to the fullest, each and every day.  I'm so proud of you.

Singing in the shower at full volume, while your friends were waiting, banging on the door, asking you to get a move on, will be one of my last memories of you.

Thank you for the privilege of being in your life.

I discovered that when you grieve, chopping onions doesn’t make you cry.

There is a gaping hole in my heart, and it aches, oh, it aches. I hear a motorbike in the distance, and I wish it is you coming home.

Tighe, you made my life so complete. Your enjoyment of life is unmatched.  You kept me young.

We had recently talked about death. Tighe didn’t want to grow old. I was talking with him recently and he said that growing old is stupid. He is chilln' in Valhalla now.

An emergency cesarean saved both our lives.  Tighe was an intelligent inquisitive child, and I learnt many things from him.  Dinosaurs and the Gods of ancient Egypt ruled his young life.  There wasn't a statistic about a dinosaur that he didn't know. Of course, he learnt the Egyptian hieroglyphs.  As he got older, he learnt the Viking Runes too, and all about the Norse gods. He was a paleontologist and a mythologist. 

Star Wars was also a fascination for Tighe, especially the Clone wars. Ask him anything, and he knew the episode, which character, which vehicle, which weapon.

I knew he was intelligent very early on. He followed the example of his older siblings in terms of early walking and talking. Tighe was obessed with zebras.  Soft toys, blankets, books, TV shows and movies. Those black and white Zebra stripes dominated his early years. 

Tighe taught himself to read. He was about three, and we were at the Auckland Zoo. He dragged me over to one of the signs, pointed to part of it, and asked if that was “Zoo”.  I had been reading him the book “Dear Zoo” prior to the visit. Something clicked in his brain, and he understood that the symbols on the page matched the words I was saying.  This set the tone of his life with us. I had to keep up with him.

His brain loved patterns and puzzles. I think that is why he was so good at languages based on symbols.  Tighe had a talent for languages, and picked these up fast. I'm sure the school wasn’t aware of the breadth of his skill. Mandarin Chinese, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, and the Star Wars language, called Aurebesh.  So imagine his anguished whisper to me, on the aeroplane to the USA, his despair that he hadn’t learnt" American", and he wasn't sure what to say when we got there.  His grasp of regional speech accents from across the world was astonishing. His “David Attenbourgh” was spot on. He regularly watched many foreign films and TV shows, and recommended new ones to me, especially Russian ones.   He also had his own Tighe language that we had to learn.  The most recent words included “dogged on”, the letter “G”, and “there are no wrinkles in their brain.” Also, a phrase, "Sí, means yes in Spanish".

Tighe and I would lie on the back lawn at night. We named the stars together. He drew the constellations*. You might know them as Scorpio, Orion’s belt and Matariki, but to Tighe and I, they were all part of Leroy’s domain.  Leroy was a dinosaur.  The cluster of stars that make up Matariki is called the Survivor’s caravan because Leroy hadn’t eaten them.

Tighe had the opportunity to explore the world.  He had visited five countries in his young life, and the experiences shaped him into a thoughtful young man. He’s been on submarines, hot air balloons, aircraft carriers, and visited missile sites. A highlight was visiting the 5000-year-old tomb of an Egyptian ruler, Khnum-hotep.

Tighe was passinate about the natural world. Wetas, praying mantis, butterflies and other insects were a huge part of Tighe’s life. At least he didn’t keep them in his room.

Tighe had an intense focus on things that interested him, and we all know, that schoolwork was not one of those things! Tighe would learn things over a weekend about whatever he as was researching.  A new language, a new game, pirate history, movies and actors, different Lego, and Starwars, butterflies and insects.

Tighe rescued two ducks, Hatu and Patu, which have enriched our lives. He named his cockatiel “Total”, after a polar bear in a book, and Sunshine, a rescue cat from the SPCA. He would also have loved to have a goat, well, … more than one goat, a chinchilla, a squirrel, and a raccoon.

Climbing. If there was a rock or tree or a cliff, Tighe would climb it. A big boulder, no problem, and he would jump off it as well. When we were exploring the world together, every available rock or wall or mountain got climbed.

At one stage Tighe wanted to be an actor, so he auditioned for Evita with the Rotorua Musical Theatre, and got a part as a Child.  Tighe really loved his time in Evita.

Tighe played Hockey for many years. He had a natural talent, and took my breath away with his skills. I watched every game.

Cheese Rolling.  Yes, it is a thing, and Tighe was very good at it.  He won delicious cheese at the New Zealand Nationals, more than once.

Tighe loved lighting fires. I think his grandmother Maureen lit that desire. When we were in San Francisco, many fires happened at Muir Beach. He and I lit many fires in the back yard, he especially liked to watch sticks burn.

Tighe had some favourite things. WALL–E was his favourite movie, Bumblebee from Transformers was his favourite character. Amongst his collection of fragrances, his favourite is Spice Bomb, the diamonds that Tighe liked were pink, and the pearls Black. 

Tighe loved Marvel Comics from a young age. I would paint his nails Hulk Green, Spiderman Red, Bumblebee yellow, and Batman Black (yeh, I know, that’s DC). At 10 years old, Tighe made himself a Deadpool costume by watching a Youtube video. I think he wore it for a year.

Tighe wore his own style, made up of flannel shirts, and beanies.  He wore layers of jewellery, looked sauve and had charisma.

Gaming was a big part of Tighe’s life.  "Dinopig120" was his username. He was always super excited when new games were released.  He would remind us all, repeatedly, of the release date. Virtual reality was a part of his life.

He was a water child. For fun, he played waterpolo and underwater hockey. Tighe could hold his breath for longer than a minute under water. Summers at the lake were a delight, and his favourite inflatable was Vlad the crocodile and, last year, the unicorn Garfunkel.

Tighe has snorkeled the coral reefs in Fiji, Rarotonga, and Vanuatu. For our birthdays in 2022, Tighe and I went back to Fiji.  He fulfilled his dream of getting certified to scuba dive. He had been waiting many years for that. It’s a totally different world underwater, and he loved the experience.

Tighe was a hands-on creative.  His cartoons were funny and insightful.  He wrote and recorded a few songs. He would sing them while doing his chores. Welding skills were his strength, and he really enjoyed building things in metal and wood. He looked forward to Trade Fridays at school.

I am sure all Tighe’s friends experienced his cheeky sense of humour.  I never really knew what he was going to say next. Recently, Tighe’s reason for not loading the dishwasher was “my knees are bent”. He would call me Mother, or Money.

Today my soul is crushed, and I can't quite believe the news of Tighe's death. Tighe lived his life intensely, to the fullest, each and every day.