A presenter had tears streaming down her face during the latest episode of A Current Affair while interviewing a man who’s faced with raising six young children alone as his wife battles terminal cancer.
Michael “Mudzz” Tarei is a father-of-six facing an unfathomable road ahead now his wife, 37-year-old wife Pania, has been told she doesn’t have long to live.
Mr Tarei sat down with ACA on Monday night to share the family’s heartbreaking story, and make a plea for donations as they struggle to support themselves after the government temporarily stopped his wife’s Centrelink payments.
“I don’t want to lose her and just my kids, them growing up without a mum,” he said as tears streamed down his cheek.
“I just need to just look at them and be around them and it just gives me the strength and courage to hold it all together.”
As he continued, the camera cut to journalist Hannah Sinclair, whose tears had left tracks in her make-up where they had been running down her face.
“We found out Mother’s Day she got diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer and by the time we had scans, it had spread to her liver and everywhere,” he explained.
“It just felt like my whole world had just shattered.”
The couple’s youngest kids, twins Kyrie and Nevaeh, are just 16 months old and were born less than a year before the family received the heartbreaking news.
Over the past six months, Pania’s condition has deteriorated and the family’s been told it’s unlikely she’ll make it to next year and so they’re preparing to spend their last Christmas together.
“She’s amazing. Best mother ever. Best partner. She always puts other people before herself and I’m just so grateful that I met her,” said Mr Tarei, who added that his kids don’t yet know just how sick their mother is.
“She’s not in a very good state. She can’t really do anything on her own. I’m trying to wait for when the time is right to tell them. It’s going to be so hard.”
Mr Tarei is a scaffolder but has been off work for months as he dedicates his time to taking care of the children, and spending precious moments with his wife. With their finances crippled, the family had been surviving off donations from their local community and rugby league club after the government cut his wife off.
“It is getting a lot harder. Things are pretty rough at the moment, but to be honest this is the least of my worries. It was just worrying about her and my kids,” he said.
However, following ACA sharing the family’s story, his wife has since had her payments reinstated.
Mr Tarei went on to share that while he wants to work, it’s practically impossible to find a job that works around his schedule. Sharing his fears for the future, he said: “It’s going to be hard trying to get all the little ones to school and trying to find the right job to suit the hours that I’m available. There’s definitely challenging times ahead. We just have to stay strong for the kids and stay strong for her”.
If you’d like to support the family, ACA set up an appeal with the Australian Lions Foundation, you can donate by clicking the link.