Shaynna Blaze

Pictured: Shaynna Blaze and Annette Ainslie

Shaynna Blaze has found television fame at an age when many experienced performers might struggle to find projects. She became co-host of Selling Houses Australia in 2008 and joined The Block as a judge in 2012. This newfound fame adds a fairytale touch to a life of hard work and perseverance as a performer and interior designer, but for Shaynna it comes with its own sadness – her mum has been living with Alzheimer’s for fifteen years and is unaware of her daughter’s successes.

I remember, when I was pregnant with my daughter, Mum won a prize: holiday accommodation in Surfers Paradise. Mum and Dad couldn’t afford to fly up, so we drove, and she got there and got out of the car and just burst into tears. It was the first time she had ever travelled. She couldn’t believe she was there – to her, it was almost like Paris. I couldn’t put myself in her shoes, to see what was so monumental for her. For me, it was just like, Surfers? Really? She was probably in her late forties.

My ambition was never really to be like my mum because Mum was just there. My ambitions were things I wasn’t completely sure about – but I knew I wanted something more. I wanted a ‘bigger’ life. I can’t tell you the one thing that triggered that feeling in me but I was adamant that the life I saw my mother living was not enough for me. I wanted to see the world and have adventures. I knew I wasn’t the type of person to sit in the one spot and just let life happen to me.

Mum was the opposite. She didn’t aspire to travel, she didn’t aspire to learn more, she didn’t aspire to anything other than just being around her family and friends. She didn’t have a strong motivation to do anything outside the family, really. She seemed content with that but Dad was always encouraging her to get involved with other things. I think he felt the same way I do, looking back – that her world was very small. So, Mum would sign up for some crafty classes – she’d do a mosaic class or watercolour painting lessons. She painted on plates and did decoupage and that sort of thing, but she didn’t really do it because she aspired to it – it was more like something to do to pass some time.

We grew up in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne and it was a beautiful childhood. We were happy. The area had been built on an old orchard, so we had a mulberry tree. It was the only mulberry tree in the area and everyone used to come and get silkworms. We also had plums, apricots and nectarines. In summer, we’d have three or four of those plastic laundry baskets just filled with plums and we’d be having plum fights in the street, all while Mum would be inside, cooking jam. She couldn’t cook a main dish to save her life, but she could make cakes, biscuits, jams – and they were delicious.

I was the second child – the middle child – and always breaking the rules. Plus, I was the only girl, so I made my presence known. I was the one sneaking out, being loud, being curious, doing things differently. Mum was driven mad by me, I’m sure.

She started working later on, when we were in high school. She didn’t have any qualifications or anything like that – she became a school cleaner, but she enjoyed it and made life-long friends. Before that, when we were in primary school, she was a stay-at-home mum, which is one of those things as a little kid that you don’t really appreciate. You see other mums working and you think: ‘Oh, I wish my mum could work,’ but then, at the same time, you get older and you realise that having her there all the time had so many advantages.

It was always unconditional love from her – no matter what I did, or if she would get upset or be embarrassed or angry – there was never any question that she wouldn’t still love me at the end of it. It was always like that – you always knew, no matter what you did or how bad it was, once it calmed down, Mum would always be there for you. That’s probably why I pushed the boundaries so much. But at the same time, despite her unconditional love for us, she wasn’t physically affectionate – at all. It was always awkward hugs. She was a highly emotional, loving person but there was usually no physical display of affection. To me, that was quite weird. My dad was the big hugger, so you’d get this big hug from Dad but you wouldn’t get it from Mum, even though you knew she loved you. That was just her. She showed love in other ways. When you have your own children, you sort of look at how you want to bring them up and how you treat them and that was just one of those things that I knew I wanted to do differently. I am always hugging my kids.

Mum seemed to breeze through her life. As long as she had Days of Our Lives and The Young and the Restless, and she could socialise and make cakes and biscuits and things, that was enough for her. Mum was one of those people who was happy with her lot in life. We were total opposites. She had this very naive outlook on life, while I was always looking for the next big thing. It wasn’t that she didn’t care – she just went along with everything that we all did. This allowed me to be so free-spirited and to make my own major mistakes and learn by myself, which is pretty amazing. By Mum not instilling her own outlook in me, she gave me the freedom to become who I wanted to be.

The thing is, now I want to say to her: ‘Wow, thanks for giving me that rope and letting me do all these things,’ but I can’t. She’s been in a nursing home for fifteen years. She’s got Alzheimer’s. The best thing about getting older is being able to sit down and have a chat with your parents and say all the things you felt. But I can never have those conversations now. I realised too late. Mum has really been gone, mentally, for years.

From high school I went and studied design. At night, I was singing in clubs. I tried a bit of dancing, a bit of acting – I loved performing. Mum and Dad would come to the dodgiest bars and see me play and would sit there and smile. Mum would go up to strangers – it used to drive me nuts – and say: ‘That’s my daughter up there.’ She was so proud. She’d come to every gig, every exhibition – everything. I don’t think she was living through me – she really just loved the celebration. I can’t say I was always happy about it. I’d be like: ‘Mum, do you have to come?’ But as much as I’d be embarrassed, sometimes I’d think that I was pretty lucky because I knew a lot of people whose parents would never turn up.

Mum was always asking me when I was going to settle down. She wanted to be a grandmother and have grandkids and she’d talk all the time about other people whose kids were having babies. When I was with someone, they were expecting me to get engaged, get married, buy a house, have kids – but I did it all the wrong way around and Mum and Dad were both unhappy about it.

When you stand there and say: ‘I’m pregnant,’ and both of your parents walk out the room – I think you sort of get the idea. I was twenty-three. My dad was really stubborn and wouldn’t talk to me for ages, whereas Mum burst into tears. Then, two days later, she comes back, after speaking with her sister, and says: ‘This is pretty exciting.’ She’d just accepted it. Mum was always worrying about what the neighbours would think, so once she got over that – and, really, who cares what the neighbours think? – it was all fine.

Mum was young when she had me and I had my kids young, too. What I’m eternally grateful for is that she allowed me to keep up my career, because she’d babysit them at the drop of a hat and she would be there any day, any night – and the kids loved her. She would take them swimming and she’d take them to the movies and she gave me total freedom to run the design business I had started. Then, when my marriage broke up and I was performing at night, she was there, no matter what time of the day. I couldn’t have coped without her support. I could see how much she adored my kids and having her there meant my kids were safe and happy and I was able to not only earn a living, but chase my dreams as well. It was an amazing thing. Seeing your mother look after your kids is just beautiful because you can see the joy your kids give them.

But then everything changed again.

Dad died at sixty-four. Mum got diagnosed with Alzheimer’s the year after – when she was sixty-four. They were saying that she possibly had it for quite a while and he’d been the one masking it, but they also said that he wouldn’t have even known he was masking it because they were just all in their normal routine. Plus, Mum was always a bit quirky. She was very forgetful, off with the fairies and, you know, she would do silly things. So the sillier she would get, the more frustrated my dad would get with her. We had no idea that what was really happening was early-onset Alzheimer’s.

At first, we thought it was grief for Dad. She would miss appointments or not turn up, or buy the same magazine more than twice. We’d go over and cook her meals and the house would be really, really bad – disorganised and dirty. One of the turning points was when Dad had been gone for six months and Mum had forgotten his birthday, so we had a really bad fight – to me, the way she was acting was all bright and breezy as though she was happy Dad was out of her life. It felt at the time like she was glad he was gone and that cut right through me. Little did I know, her Alzheimer’s was getting so advanced that she had even forgotten who he was. There were a couple of other things too – once, she forgot to pick my son up from day care. I knew she never would have forgotten something like that, so it was then that I knew something was wrong.

My brother and I had her tested. We watched as they asked her these simple questions, and when she couldn’t answer them our jaws dropped to the floor. I knew she got muddled with the days of the week, but we all do that when we get busy sometimes. She didn’t know what season it was or who the leader of the country was, or even what year it was – these were all basic things and you would never think to ask and check.

It was devastating. My brother and I felt cruel. We’d been having arguments with her and getting frustrated with her but it wasn’t her fault at all. We knew she was too young and it wasn’t fair. It was one of those things where it feels like the floor falls out from underneath you and you think: ‘Where do we go from here?’

From there, the deterioration seemed instant. Within twelve months we had to put her in care. She actually lost her cognitive skills before she lost her memory completely. Normally, they told us, it’s the other way around.

We would go out for a coffee and she would just sit there because she wouldn’t know to pick up the cup. We’d be having this amazing conversation about the kids and everything else seemed pretty normal and I’d say: ‘Mum, it’s going cold – have a drink,’ and only then realise she just didn’t know she was meant to pick it up.

It was actually really dangerous. We found out later that there had been a couple of times she’d driven to the shopping centre and forgotten where she was. She’d been wandering for three or four hours but she couldn’t work out how to ring us. We had to take her licence away from her before she went into a nursing home and I think that was the worst thing that happened to her. Her independence was gone. It happened so fast. She went downhill and she was just gone. By the time she was sixty-seven – just three years after her initial diagnosis – she was in the high-care ward.

My brother and I went straight into organisation mode. I had my own business but I was still working for someone else part-time. I had to take so many days off from that job to look after things, plus, suddenly, there were my kids, whom Mum had always helped me with so much. Lots of things changed in my life. We had to sell my family home. If my brother and I didn’t have each other, it would have been even worse.

For the last three years, Mum has had no idea about who anyone is. The kids used to see her for a while at first but it was hard. It took her a couple of years before she started to forget who they were and then she moved into high care. My son, especially, was devastated. Now, she’s totally unresponsive. Maybe a few hums and other noises but that’s it. She hardly ever opens her eyes.

And the sad thing is, my life is so crazy with travel that I might have months where I’m only home one day a week, and when I’m home I want to see my husband and my kids.

It’s horrible to think of Mum as a burden, but you just have to feel comfort in knowing she’s really well looked after and that you should spend the minimal time you do have with the people who are there with you – people who need your support and attention. Still, the guilt about it when you’re not there – it’s overwhelming.

I think the whole thing has taught me how resilient I am. That’s one of the biggest lessons. As much as I always thought that my mum wasn’t that important in my upbringing and I always viewed my dad as the defining person in my life, I know now that there were so many qualities she had that I dismissed and I think that’s what gets me really sad – knowing that she’s alive, but not alive, and that I can’t thank her. Looking back, I think Dad died with a lot of regrets because I don’t think he ever achieved what he wanted to. Yes, he was more creative and, sure, he might have lived a more interesting life, but Mum was there unconditionally – and always with a smile on her face. But I can never thank her for it now. I think that’s the hardest thing.

It’s one of those things you can’t predict. I’ve always tried to look after myself health-wise, but sometimes, no matter what you do, it comes down to whatever cards you’re dealt. I don’t mean that it’s like: ‘Well, I might as well drink and smoke, because I’m going to die anyway.’ What I get out of it is that, rather than regretting what I do and don’t do, I celebrate what I have right now and just make the most of it.

Mum may have never been ambitious but she was always just happy to be surrounded by love and balance and stability, and to me those are really important things. I’ve got an amazing husband now and amazing kids. It’s an incredibly balanced emotional foundation that allows all of us – not just me – to go off and do things ourselves. It’s how I’ve been able to have this shot at a TV career that has been so wonderful, and I realise now how important that is. I certainly never appreciated the value of it when I was younger. No matter how much you want to achieve and what you want to do, that core balance always has to keep you grounded.

Now, I think I’m sort of in that holding pattern of waiting for Mum to die, which is a horrible thing. It’s about not knowing whether I will actually mourn her or whether I’ve already done the mourning – whether it might be a relief, in some ways. I just don’t know.

I’ve had time to reflect on her a lot and what she’s lost and what she’s missed out on and I know I get a little bit angry. Not at her but I get angry at the universe, at just how unfair it is that she’s missed out on seeing her grandchildren really grow up. But I’m sure a lot of people have that. My daughter has these little funny quirks that just remind me of my mum so much. They could’ve had a lot of fun together.

What I’ve missed out on is the opportunity to speak to my Mum and say ‘I’m sorry’ for certain things and ‘thank you’ for certain things. I want to be able to say: ‘Let’s go to see a movie together’ or: ‘Let’s go see a play,’ because she loved musicals – because I’d like to spend some time just being mother and daughter.

I think the defining moment for me was having my kids – that gave me something to answer to. I’ve always wanted them to have someone to look up to and I do my best to give them total unconditional love and total acceptance no matter what they do. That’s all you can do – be the best you know how to be. Being a mother is all about learning, all the time. Being a daughter, I think, is too.