It was a week or two
before my fifth birthday the night my beloved Nani (Grandmother) died. Yet she has remained with me for every important event in my life since...
My mother had taken my two younger brothers and I to stay with her parents. Dad was still in the army then I think and my mother, with her belly swollen and round with my sister, due in three weeks, was crying on the phone as she told him the news.
I'd woken in fright. The dark so thick it smothered me, my bladder urging me up and out of the huge bed, eyes riveted to the thin strip of light coming through underneath the door. I managed to reach up and twist the knob, eventually pulling the door open and coming up short as I took in my mother sobbing on the phone. I tried to get her attention as her tears scared me more, but she ignored me, lost in her sorrow.
Still needing to go, but feeling even more alarmed, I made my way through the house where every light seemed to be blazing, to the back door and outside. The laundry and the toilet were straight opposite from the back door, but it was always daunting at night because the first few steps were also open to the outside and the darkness beyond.
I pushed open the slightly ajar door to the laundry and froze as I saw my Koro(Grandfather). He was down on his knees, hugging his dead wife in his arms, his grief so palpable, so raw that even I, so young could feel it. She'd had a heart attack, probably brought on by the epilepsy she suffered, and lay where she had keeled over, half way between both rooms.
I was crying too by then, more from fright and shock than for understanding. I turned away when he took no notice of me and moved hesitantly down the back steps, clutching to the steel rail and crouched over the grass to pee, before tearing back to bed. I'd left the bedroom door open, but there were other voices now, then more wails and crying as others arrived, the sound of car doors slamming shut making me flinch. Someone closed the door to the room and I was once more plunged into the pitch black. Terrified by all the strange happenings, I was sitting up in the bed howling in misery and wanting my Nani.
When suddenly she was there...
A blue-white ball of light stopped my tears as I watched it move from somewhere near the door and grow as it came toward me. I could feel her then and let out a peel of happy laughter as I felt her bury her face in the side of my neck and blow a soft raspberry, the way she always did...
"There, there moko,(a shortened version of mokopuna which means grandchild) Nani's here. You should be fast asleep my baby... Sleep now little one, I'm here. Nani will always be here" bathed in the warmth of the light, safe in her loving arms, I did.
I know now as an adult, that it was her, always her as she took me gently in her arms and away somewhere else when the bad things happened. When I was still too young to deal with them.
She was there the night I walked home from the pool when I was thirteen, maybe fourteen and made what could have been a deadly mistake, when I came upon a group of youths, who were smoking and drinking near the college. They cat-called loudly to me, urging me to join them, taunting and jeering with their crude remarks and blatant innuendos. Not wanting to pass near them I chose instead... to go around them. To cut through the field behind the school and on to where I lived beyond...
It was really dark now. No street lights here to illuminate the field, just a vast sea of blackness and shadows that loomed with as much menace as the danger closing swiftly behind me. I barely had time to consider that I might have once again, made the wrong choice when suddenly she was there. She filled my mind, her eye boring into mine the one word she said, loud, urgent and clear.
"RUN"
Without pause, adrenalin instantly flooding into my bloodstream, I took off running as fast as I could. Heading straight for the long grass beyond the rugby fields, eyes wide, ears hyper-sensitive and alert to every sound. The sounds of nature deafening in the abrupt silence.
And then they were coming. Yelling and whooping as they spread out and called out to one another. And then to me...
"What's your hurry baby? Come back over here and see what I've got for you, you know you'll like it!" he was close, somewhere on my right...
Another coming up from the left... "We're gonnna geeeettt you! We're gonna fuck you sooooooo good, you'll be begging for more!" Terror and panic threatening to overwhelm, my breath was whooshing in and out of chest. My God! Were they surrounding me? I couldn't think straight. Couldn't still the thundering staccato beat of my heart. I'd even stopped and just stood there like a dummy, head hanging unable not to listen to their baiting, the thrashing onward rush of their bodies as they tore through the long grass, coming closer towards me....
And then she was there again.
"Down moko, make yourself small"
I didn't think about it. I didn't question it. I just listened. Paid attention and did what she told me to, moving when she said move, stopping and waiting and once, moving back and waiting until she urged me forward again, until eventually...
I sat hidden in the long grass opposite my back fence with safety beyond barely a hop, skip and a jump away. I wanted to run to it, leap over the wire and sprint onward to the back door, through it and into my Father's arms. But leaving the long grass meant crossing an open mowed area, where I might be visible. I'd already made to rise, leg muscles taunt and ready to propel me forward...
"Wait... Be still and small moko. Wait." I sunk back slowly and heard a harsh whisper that seemed almost on top me.
"Where did she go? Can anyone see her?"
And another to my left... "Awwwwwww I don't know man, who the fuck gives a shit, she's long gone, I'm outa here"
I could hear him as he moved back and away from where I crouched, curled tight around myself.
Other voices called out as back and forth they bantered, the noises they made pushing through the tall grass, fading away as surely as their voices. Giving me a false sense of security as again the fence tempted me. So close and yet so far...
Minutes passing like years, I waited. Alone and in the dark, the urge to flee so powerful and strong that it was all I could do not to give in to it... Then the strike of a match, so loud and close that I barely suppressed the scream I could taste in my throat. The sudden flare in the darkness mere feet away from where I sat.The briefest glimpse of a face before it glowed unnaturally behind cupped hands and then the acrid stench of a cigarette... The red glow was a beacon that I watched in amazement as it rose seemingly of it's own volition upward, passing so close I was certain he'd step right down on top of me. Again, the overwhelming urge to panic, to scream, to break cover and run... Before I realized he was leaving too, moving off into the distance, no longer in my line of sight. And yet still I waited.
Only when the crickets had once again resumed their chorus did I move. But I stayed low and crept gradually closer to the fence line, easing myself carefully over it and moving with a quick sureness through my own yard to the backdoor. I nearly sobbed with relief at seeing my Father framed in the light of the kitchen window. I could see him shaking his head and muttering to himself, peering out into the darkness. He couldn't see me of course but I knew I was in for it when I'd barely turned the door handle before he was yanking it backward out of my hand, reaching for me and dragging me inward. Angry eyes met mine, but there was fear there too. Fear that something bad could have happened. Yet still his hand went to his leather belt...
So when he roared in my face and let fly with his belt, the sharp cracks catching me across the thighs and calves, I stood there and took it. He was yelling something about what time did I call this and how I knew Goddammit! That I was supposed to be in before the streetlights came on... That I was irresponsible and a selfish... And all the other stuff I did that drove him nuts and came out when he got mad. I kept my head down and my mouth shut and took my licking, shaking from head to toe. I was exhausted beyond belief but went to bed after cooling the welts on my legs with cold water, grateful that the only pain I'd suffered this night was from them.
There were other times she came to, too many to count over the years. Or perhaps I should say discount... Then there were others that came in the night to warn of loved ones passing, some who didn't know what had happened to them and sought help, scaring the daylights out of me in the process, when someone solid disappeared before my eyes. I eventually learnt how to deal with it and the manifestations, for want of a better word, are few and far between now.
One time in my early twenties, I took my eldest son, who was still a baby and traveled from Auckland to Mount Maunganui, near Tauranga to visit my Mother in-law overnight. She was a 'bigwig' with boy scouts and was there for the annual scouting jamboree, camped with hundreds of others in huge barrack-like tents, altogether in paddocks not far from the shore. In the early hours of the morning, I was woken by the cold. I rose half asleep to check my young son, tucked up snug and toasty warm and sleeping peacefully in a cane crib beside me. Seeing he was fine, I threaded my way down the rows of sleeping bodies intending to hit the head, but was distracted by the sounds of bare feet running past the tent. Instantly alert, I quickly headed outside to investigate when movement to my left caught my eye...
I have no idea of warfare or battle strategies and merely relate what I saw and remember from that night. I therefore apologize if it makes little sense...
Without even being aware of how I'd gotten there, I found myself facing the mountain and watched in skin crawling numbness as Maori warriors rose up from the ground before me. Wearing nothing but their short puipui (grass skirts) most carrying taiaha (long clubs), some with shortened muskets and others with what appeared to be deadly pounamu (greenstone) mere. The flattened fighting clubs, the stone sharpened on one side and capable of shearing the top of a mans skull off, with one blow.
The high pitched eerie wail of a Maori war chant echoed around the valley between the land and the sea. The peruperu or haka, meant as physiological intimidation reverberated through my body. I could feel the mounting tension, smell the terror from those unseasoned amongst the British soldiers, who outnumbered the oncoming threat as they took up defensive positions in front of the mountain and flanking either side of the line, with the mountain at their back. The first line of soldiers were kneeling on one leg, the other a brace for an elbow with arms outstretched and a cradle for the long barreled musket, stiletto-like bayonet screwed firmly in place...
But I regress for a moment in the heat of battle... When I was a small child, we went for occasional visits and stays on the family marae,(communal enclosed area of land with a main meeting house of the iwi, tribe for gathering and sleeping with several smaller buildings) usually for funerals and weddings. My iwi is Ngati Raukawa and our marae is named Aotearoa(land of the long white cloud) and is close to Kihikihi, the town I born in, in the heart of the Waikato district. It is one of the more affluent tribes today with large land holdings and money for further education.
My favorite time was of an evening crouched on the porch near where the old kuia's sat, (old women) listening to ghost stories, legends of our iwi and remember tales that were past on in typical age old fashion, by the telling a story... One old kuia was scarier than the others, with moko, (tattoo) on her chin and lips, the blue green ink a constant source of fascination. Her aged face intrigued me with the deep wrinkles that were carved like furrows in her skin. She was the oldest woman I ever saw and as such a respected member of the tribe. She would sit it seemed, on the porch of the meeting house smoking her pipe, with her worn cloak around her withered shoulders and her eyes rheumy with age, all day, every day. She refused to speak English and picked on anyone who came near. She was avoided by the younger ones, but for some reason I crawled into her lap one night and huddled against her. I was hidden and snug within the folds of her cloak, my small hand darting up now and then to play with the whiskers on her chin. To touch and trace her wrinkles. She seemed to enjoy me being there and was where, more often than not I could be found when not up to mischief somewhere else. The little history that follows, before getting back to the battle, was learnt by listening to her, to those stories...
To the Maori, who saw themselves as defenders of the land, the pakeha(pale skin Gods with eyes in the back of their heads) were rapists of the natural resources. Felling the once mighty Kauri and Totara forests for the sake of their unquenchable avarice for more timber and to clear the land for settlement. More and more settlers arrived from across the sea, who fenced the land and used deadly force to protect their properties. The land was Papa-tua-nuku, mother earth, the heart of the Maori people and provided for all her children...
To the English Army who fought for Queen Victoria with conscripts from Australia, America, Canada, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. The Maori were viewed as little more than ignorant savages, worthy of nothing short of extermination. They stood in the way of progress, didn't value personal items and had little understanding of the need for proper governance by the Crown and the vital, necessary acquisition and distribution of land to non-Maori. Who simply had no concept of proper fighting etiquette, choosing instead cunning, the peruperu, stealth and attacking without forewarning or provocation.
Yet on 6 February 1840 the Treaty of Waitangi (Weeping waters) would be signed. Nine original documents were made and signed by nearly five hundred Maori chieftains and representatives of the great Queen of England, Victoria. Essentially, it recognized Maori ownership of their lands and property. It offered them the same rights and protection as those enjoyed by British subjects and in turn, the Maori of the North Island of Aotearoa, gave the sovereignty of the country and the governing of the same to the British Crown.
The Treaty largely ignored became a bone of contention with the land and the acquisition of more leading to rebellion and the Maori Land Wars that pitted eighteen thousand soldiers at peak deployment against five thousand hostile natives at peak deployment and lasted from 1845 to 1872. Both sides would suffer extensive causalities...
Mount Maunganui had been a Pa, a fortified barricade of defense, with trenches cut around the mountain that I believe are still visible there today. While the troops faced outward and away from the mountain at their backs, the warriors scrambled upward about the sides, before pouring in, overwhelming their enemy with their ferocity and attacking them from the rear... the bloodcurdling screams, the confusion, the explosive roar of musket fire echoing and seeming to come from everywhere all at once... and the blood shed that ran a river of red to soak into the earth from both sides... finally dying away to barely an echo as the scene dissolved back into the shadows before me...
The last thing I remembered was being on my knees and vomiting the remains of my supper, before wearily returning to camp.
Another time was on the night before my Father died. He was in a hospice hospital in Kaukapakapa and I'd been going to see him alone in the middle of the night, driving the thirty miles or so from where we lived, to sit with him. He'd been a big man in life, before the accumulated ravages of emphysema and cancer, had reduced him to the flesh covered skeleton on the bed before me. He was past talking, trapped within until his body like a clock, finally wound down and stopped altogether.
Barely recognizable, it broke my heart to see him as he was. Especially when my head was filled to overflowing with the laughter and love, the time he'd given to us as children, the fierceness of his protection, his pride... I remembered the travels he'd taken us on, four kids and a dog crammed into a mini clubman van, stopping where we wanted, fishing from the beach, or prying oysters from the rocks, his smiling Irish hazel eyes telling us how we were the light of his life... So very many, wonderful memories. Too many to count...
So I visited when no one else did. Just sat in a chair beside his bed, holding his hand gently in mine and giving comfort in the dark. I leaned forward and laid my head near his shoulder, closed my eyes and told him of all the wonderful things I could remember from childhood.
I told him how very much I loved him and that I would miss him. I thanked him for giving me life, for being my Daddy, for all the times he stood firm at my back, for any and everything I could think of. Finally I told him I forgave the darkness in him and then... I told him it was time for him to go. That he didn't need to worry about any of us anymore, that it was okay to let go and fly free... His breathing changed as I spoke, the wheezing gasps to a rattle, the pauses between each labored inhalation, widening.
And then he suddenly began to sit up...
I sat up too and watched in astonishment as he opened his eyes and looked with a fearful grimace around the room. His hand was clutching tight to mine now, like the claws of a bird. He didn't see me at first, but stared wildly around in confusion, before locking on the figures that crowded close. I looked at them too but if I stared directly, they were simply bright spots of light. Only when I looked away and out of the corner of my eyes did I see them all. Too many souls to count... All with a connection to share. Then one by one, they slowly began to appear and just to add to the extraordinary, only their top halves, so they seemed to be floating in a most startling way above themselves. Only one or two spared a glance for me and smiled softly. There was a strange buzzing in my ears, like static over the airways... like too many voices all trying to speak at once.
I spoke then, telling him it was okay, that they'd come to show him the way and how it would all be alright now. He looked at me and in a voice strangely hollow and threadbare from lack of use, he said,
"Louise? Is that you honey?"
I tried to smile, scarcely able to see him through my tears but managed a quick nod and wanted to say something more, something meaningful to him. But I could feel the strain of the moment as we locked eyes and then, it was just too late. He'd slumped back against the pillows, once more catatonic.
I had said my goodbyes and left as the sun came up, knowing it would be my brothers and sister who were there for his last breath...But it was the shell of our Father nothing more...all that lingered of the man who had made such an impact in my life. His spirit, his soul whatever you want to call it...to me it's just energy...the same energy that connects us all, burst free from what earthly ties still bound him. It poured through me in a moment of bliss that filled my mind with such love, such joy and serenity that I was elated...a strange thing to say as he left me for good...but there was peace too...
I don't know why I have sometimes seen, felt or heard things differently from what others perceive at times, but I have learnt to pay attention.
It was never something I wanted or actively encouraged, but I've learnt to respect it.
The few times that I tried to learn more about it, led to things even more bizarre. So I learnt to accept it for what it was and is...
It's lessened over the years and for that I am truly grateful.
