Wiremu Keepa

Heartfelt thanks:  Kaumatua’s joy at receiving and giving the greatest gift – life itself

Words Jill Nicholas

Pictures/video Stephen Parker

In this festive season of giving surely nothing can surpass the gift Wiremu Keepa received close to 20 years ago.

It was a heart, a transplanted organ that gave him renewed life.

Now new life is something the Ngāti Whakaue kaumatua has given in return.

Almost two decades after a donated heart replaced his own defunct organ, he became a dad - at the age of 69.

Whitiora Āti Te Manawanui Keepa, now 14 months, is Wiremu’s third son. His older boys, Eruera and Mataia Keepa, are in their 30s. 

Wiremu accepts there are some who still struggle with him becoming a gold card carrying father but he rejoices his “bigger boys” aren’t among them. They share his joy. 

“When I told them [about the baby] they were over the moon. They are proud they have a baby brother. I am proud they love him and are nurturing him in all things Māori.”

It was Mataia, a graduate of Te Panekiretanga Māori language academy, who named the baby. The name comes from the Pīpīwharauroa (shining cuckoo) which returns from warmer climates every spring, announcing its arrival with “Kūī, Kūī, whiti, whiti ora”.

“Whiti” (to cross) “ora” (to the living world) also refers to the baby’s initial difficulty in latching onto his source of living. 

Wiremu and Whitiora’s mother met while they were both learning te reo Māori.

“Meeting Anna May has been a revelation that I would never have imagined so much later in my life. I feel truly fulfilled.”

As for discovering he was to be a father in his late 60s he says: “For maybe a brief moment I was a bit shocked, then I was ecstatic. Having another baby is a brilliant feeling. 

“It‘s hard to balance the excitement of having a new heart and a new baby. Both are right up there.”

“I should be dead” 

He’s the first to admit he’d be long buried had a donor heart not come his way at the time his life was spiralling into oblivion.

“By rights I should be dead.” It’s an unequivocal fact he delivers without a hint of sentimentality or self pity. 

“I’d even planned my tangihanga (funeral), my plot and how many days I’d lie in state on my marae. I was prepared to die.”

The thought of dying didn’t frighten him but he knew he had a lot more living to do.

He taught himself to get in touch with his wairua (spirit) and made frequent visits to his tūpuna (forebears) at Kauae urupa (cemetery).

The former naval petty officer, who has excelled in the academic world, was in his 40s when his strength began to falter.

“I was getting more tired and much weaker than I’d ever felt.” 

A blackout, which led to him crashing his car on Te Ngae Road, brought the diagnosis that he was suffering from cardiomyopathy (swelling of the heart muscle, limiting blood flow to the body).

Cardiologists at Rotorua and Waikato Hospitals told him a transplant was his only hope of survival. But donor hearts that are a perfect match don’t come off the shelf. 

Wiremu waited five years for his. He never allowed himself to get his hopes up but went as hard out to be as “match day ready” as his failing organ allowed.

He quit smoking within a day. He exercised more than ever; particularly as his strength ebbed.

A heart recipient friend urged him to exercise up to the day of the operation, telling him it would help with his recovery. 

Heart in helicopter 

On May 1, 2003 the call came from Green Lane Hospital to get there urgently.

“I hopped in my car, I hardly said anything to my family. I was quite blasé. I thought maybe they wanted me for something routine. I was really hungry but at the back of my mind something was telling me not to eat. So my journey to Auckland was on an empty stomach.

“At Green Lane nurses began to prep me. I said ‘but I’m only here for a check up’.

One of them said ‘No, hear that helicopter overhead? Your heart is in it.”

Wiremu joined two other men outside the theatre suite. They were each to receive a lung.

“They were calling us triplets because we were getting organs from the same donor.

“It was quite traumatic. I said a karakia [prayer] for us as we were about to undergo our lifesaving operations.”

One of his fellow recipients was a Māori man from Taupō, the other was Trevor Kenny, also from Rotorua.

“It was the first time we’d met. We stayed in touch after our operations. It’s a strange thing to say but I had the pleasure of going to Trevor’s funeral seven or eight years later. I say pleasure because I was just so happy he got to live longer with that donated lung.

“The Māori guy only lasted three or four days. He had a brain aneurism. That was so sad. We were mates in arms.”

Rapid recovery

Wiremu’s recovery was rapid and without complications.

“After 24 hours I was walking around the ward carrying the tubes attached to me on a trolley. That took a huge amount of willpower but I was determined to recover quickly.

“I credit my physiotherapist for urging me to leave my bed and walk. A simple everyday task one would think, but man, did I call on all my hidden strengths to take that very first step.

I was told I’d invariably have setbacks, even rejection within the first two or three years. I had nothing.”

He was home three months after the transplant.

But first he had to prove his fitness level by conquering Auckland’s One Tree Hill.

“The last 200 metres were almost vertical going. It was a major major challenge. It was my new heart that got me up there.

“Green Lane did a marvellous job; the doctors, the nurses. I am forever grateful to Green Lane Hospital.”

He gives thanks to his donor “ever hour of every day”.

Meeting donor’s wife

Normally the identity of donor families remains unknown but in a break with custom Wiremu has met the widow of the man whose heart beats in his chest.

At her request they were introduced at a thanksgiving service for donors, recipients and whanau held at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Parnell.

“Someone came up to me after the service and asked if I‘d like to meet my donor’s wife. I was ecstatic and said ‘yes, yes of course’. 

“We embraced. I grabbed her hand and put it on my chest so she could feel the heartbeat of her husband. It was very emotional for both of us.” 

They remain in touch.

“I will always acknowledge her for her bravery in allowing her husband’s heart and organs to be donated. She has two lovely daughters who were only babies at the time.”

His donor died in a workplace fall in Hamilton. Wiremu credits his Scottish ancestry for the ease with which he adapted to his transplanted heart.

“I reckon I’ve had no issues because my donor was a full-blooded Scotsman like my maternal grandfather. To me, it’s the strength of those Scottish bloodlines that has prevented rejection.” 

Tin canoes, tar plugs 

With those two remarkable chapters of the courageous Wiremu Keepa’s life laid bare there’s an obvious need for an overview of his earlier years. 

 Born “in the old prefabs up on the hill” [Rotorua Hospital’s maternity unit on Pukeroa] he was the fourth child of 10 for Bill Keepa and his wife Witarina (nee Ingram).

“She had seven sisters and one brother. He was killed during the Māori Battalion’s battle at Takrouna in North Africa. 

“Our whanau home down Koutu Road’s still standing. We had a wonderful upbringing, playing outside for hours and hours. In those days it was hard for parents to get their kids in for kai. 

“We made tin boats out of corrugated iron. We formed it into canoes, plugging the holes with tar from the road, launching them into the lake we learned to swim in. Where we launched them is all houses now.”

Wiremu was one of those who left school the minute the calendar signalled their 15th birthday.

His dad, a clerk with the Forest Service, got him a job within the organisation as a surveyor’s chainman. Wiremu stuck it out for a while.

 Coin toss decides naval career 

“But I knew there was a wider world outside Rotorua so I hopped on a bus to Napier and picked tomatoes. Then I moved on to Wellington and worked in a wool store. After three months I caught the ferry and spent a season picking tobacco in Motueka.”

With a couple of mates he hitchhiked to Gore, finding jobs in the Tapanui sawmill.

By his 18th birthday he was home and standing outside the Labour Department. He tossed a coin.

“I decided if it was heads I’d go into the army, if it was tails it would be the navy. It came up tails. Athol Garlic was the naval recruiter. He said he knew my father had been in the Māori Battalion and wanted to know why I was joining the navy. I told him about the coin toss and he was happy.”

That was in 1971. Wiremu spent the next 20 years in the navy, much of it as a gunnery instructor.

“There were numerous overseas deployments. I reckon I’ve been to Oz about 10 times. I’ve seen a lot of the world but I never got to the UK. There were two ships going north at the same time. I was on the wrong one.”

When his naval time was up he discovered gunnery instructors weren’t in hot demand in Civvie Street. He had a back-up plan.

“I had this urge to learn.”

Entering the academic world 

Learn he did. For the next six years he studied at the University of Waikato then Waiariki Polytech. He has a Bachelor of Tourism Management, a Post Graduate Diploma of Management Studies and a Masters in Business Administration.

“It was then I was satisfied I had completed my academia. I needed to get to work. With Rotorua the hub of tourism I used my tourism degree to work with Tamaki Tours. For about eight years I was a guide, a driver, a host.”

However, he hadn’t quite given up on further study. Influenced by his heart transplant he gave thought to a PhD, focusing on the reluctance of many Māori to become organ donors”.

“Sadly Māori are at the back of the queue when it comes to donating organs because of cultural beliefs, but in the front of the queue of those requiring organs. I needed to balance that in equilibrium. 

“I thought about it for quite a while but as time drifted by my enthusiasm started to fail. I just couldn’t make that commitment to further my education for another five years.” 

One commitment he did make was to his iwi.

Becoming a kaumatua

 “I definitely wasn’t born into the role of sitting on the paepae [orators’ bench] and becoming a Ngāti Whakaue kaumatua. 

But I saw the opportunity to stand proud on the pae at my tupuna wharenui, Tunohopu [Ohinemutu].

“At first I was extremely afraid, worried my te reo (Māori language) was not that strong. Over time I strengthened it and became a regular face at many gatherings, hui, powhiri, tangihanga.” 

As his confidence grew the support he was able to give also grew.

“I am happy I have been able to enter into that world and support my iwi. I am happy I have contributed and I can pass the skills I have learned down to my three sons. The sad thing is we don’t have many young ones coming through.”    

# This is the final In Profile in the present series.