My nan passed away in 1984. I was 4 years old. I did not attend her tangihanga, as travelling to the East Cape of the North Island from Invercargill was a logistical exercise that would have involved a lot of cogs moving seamlessly together to get seven of us there in time. My father went by himself.
The time I spent with Nan before her passing was fleeting. Memories of my interactions with her are virtually non-existent. I have photos of her, but I cannot remember the feel of her skin. The warmth of her hugs. The sound of her voice. The tones of her growlings - the tone when you knew you were in real trouble and the tone when you knew she was just putting on appearances.
Her passing also signalled the end of our returns to the East Cape. Some 20 years later I asked my father why. His reply, ‘‘I was only taking you back so you could have a relationship with your grandparents. When Mum died there was no need to go back there anymore.’’ All I could think was, ‘‘what about the rest of the whanau?’’. Did we not deserve to have a relationship with them? What about our relationship with our tūrangawaewae?
My dad passed away in April 2007. In October that same year my nephew was born. My dad’s first mokopuna. And I knew then that my sister and I needed to make a change. The cultural inadequacies we felt as children who had grown up at the opposite end of the country to where we whakapapa to, and the impact that had on our identity as Maori and as Ngati Porou, should not be passed on to my nephew. In most cases, when your Maori parent is no longer there to be the conduit between yourself and your whanau, any future interaction with them can cease to happen altogether or may continue sporadically - usually only in times of mourning. And that is normally done out of obligation rather than feeling any overwhelming sense of desire to really be there.
The disappointment I felt in my father’s decision, for not enabling us to be part of our whanau, the embarrassment I felt for not being able to articulate my connections to others, and the anxiety I felt when placed in cultural situations beyond my level of comfort, should not be felt by my nephew, and subsequently his sister and my own children. If they were to ever feel like that then I would have failed in my role as their aunty and mama.
So we began the process of reconnection. Slowly pushing our way into the lives (and hearts) of our northern relations. Yes, sometimes the conversations seemed forced. The pauses between sentences too long. The silence reminding us that we did not have a shared history of experiences to reminisce, laugh and cry over. Even though we were whanau, we were strangers.
For 15 years we have been working at this. If anyone ever thought that reconnection was a quick and easy process, they must not have tried it yet. For a long time it felt like a one-way relationship. There was almost an unsaid expectation that we would be the ones to make the trek northwards. It made absolute sense for us to do so and I do not resent that expectation. Not only were we reconnecting with people, we were also reconnecting with place. Recently, whanau have travelled southwards to celebrate significant events with us. That’s when I knew that the 15-year investment in time, money and emotion had been worth it.
Four years ago tomorrow my daughter was born. The same age I was when Nan died. Our upbringings could not be more different. At 4 years old she is bilingual, loves sleeping on marae, recites her Ngati Porou pepeha with ease, has swum in her awa, is a kapa haka queen in training, can recite karakia with conviction, and knows how to confidently navigate her way through a multitude of cultural spaces and places - he manu hou, he pi ka rere! But more importantly, she has strong relationships with our whole whanau, and has been creating memories with them since birth.
Next year will mark 40 years since Nan died. I have a photo of her on my desk at work. I see her smile every day, the mischief in her eyes and the glow of happiness that surrounds her. My cousin is sitting beside her - her favourite mokopuna - which might account for her smile. It is through this cousin that I have learnt the most about Nan. She was kind. She was protective. She was someone you did not mess with. And she loved her whanau with every inch of her being.
If I did not invest in our whanau as much as I am, I would be doing her love for us an injustice.
Kei taku manukura, ahakoa kua haumūmū tō pie ki te ao mō te wā roa, e tangi mōteatea tonu nei mātou mōu. He aroha, he mamae, waimarie te tangata.
