He Kupu Whakataki - An Introduction

This blog is going to be about my unfolding memories of my self and family, so I'm starting with my earliest memories, even though I believe that who and what we are at heart is well and truly established before we become conscious of this world. Well - that's my theory anyway.

Anyway my first memory is completely unfiltered and really frightening. I recall being held over my uncle (dad's brother) Laurie’s coffin screaming my refusal to kiss him because there was something coming out of the corner of his mouth. I was three so it must have been 1959. Over the years no-one in the family I ever told about this memory could validate it for me until in 1996, two years before she died, I asked my nanna Alma about it. She was a very unsentimental person who'd had 21 children, 9 of whom she buried. When I recounted this memory to her she just very matter of factly said, "Yes, that's right. Laurie had a cut at the corner of his mouth and towards the end of the tangi (the lying-in-state period for Maori people) it was breaking down." It was good to have her confirm my memory, but even better to move it from the realm of horror to that of fact. Thank you nanna.

My next memory is of Bo’s birth. Although I am the first and he is the fourth of us seven children, it's not really strange that I remember his birth but not the earlier ones of Katarina and Pat when you put it in the context of the elevated place Bo had in our father's eyes and heart; a position he retains to this day as the oldest son.

Anyway, it was 23rd January 1960 and my aunt took the call announcing his birth, and I either took or was given the job to go and tell my father the news. Probably I took it on myself, because I liked it when dad smiled his rare smile and I felt that this might do it. I recall running down the road to catch him riding the horse home, then looking up at him and saying importantly, "You have a son.” I remember how his face was lost in the haze of the sun behind him and I couldn't tell if he smiled or not. I was almost four.

After that, I have no more unfiltered memories.

It’s funny - I almost forgot to mention my own birth memories which, of course, are borrowed.

My mother was twenty and my father twenty-eight. He must have taken her to the annexe, but he wasn’t there during my birth. After he'd seen me he was prompted to write his in-laws, “She looks like a monkey.” He also boasted, “Gloria has plenty of milk, more than the other women in her ward. She is a good cow.” I like to bask, even from this distance of time, in the reflected glow of his pride as manifested in that letter.

Anyway being young and inexperienced, my mother didn't really have a strong grasp of how her baby should look and act. But after two days she stopped asking the nurses why I cried non-stop and went looking for herself, at which point she asked a new question, “Is my baby’s mouth supposed to be like this?” She told me that there was dismay and remorse throughout that hospital, from the humblest to the highest. You see, I had a cleft palate.

So much for the good cow and the proud father. You know - I reckon that's why I'm always hungry. Well, it seems a reasonable theory, except that it conflicts with my earlier stated belief that we are who we are before we're born. Ah well.

I am today a more controlled and polished version of the child who was born on that day to an occasionally violent but loving father and a gentle articulate mother.

From an early age until my late teens my father and I regularly went to war with each other. And I mean real war with real weapons, punches and kicks that really hurt and made us both cry - but never in front of each other. Our anger could take either one of us across a room, and over the top of whoever or whatever was between us. Similarly and concurrently Bo and I fought for supremacy - me, the matamua (oldest child) and he, the tuakana (oldest son). Thank God our mum was both a buffer and a moderator between and for us all. My mum also took the brunt of a lot of my anger and frustration at dad and the double standards he unwittingly practiced between his sons and daughters.

My mother came from a background with sharp divisions between schoool - where she excelled in a Pakeha (white) world, and home - where she was never sure what she'd find happening on her return from school; anything from a church meeting to a party of visiting relatives from Pawarenga. Hers was a Ratana (an indigenous Christian religion) home which instilled genteel values in the 6 children, of which she was the oldest. Yet home was also where she increasingly saw alcohol and jealousy-fuelled exchanges between her parents. But by and large it was a place where education was valued, the rare violence was limited to between-adult exchanges, and mum was nurtured to believe in her specialness. Mum's never been so much as smacked in her entire life. She tells us now that she was completely blown away by her in-laws with whom she lived the early years of her marriage. They were Irish-Maori Catholic. A large and rowdy brood who were tolerant of difference yet intolerant of and punitive towards unrepentant liars and crooks. They were carelessly inclusive of all sorts of colourful characters and could be haphazardly violent, but they were never malicious. They were all physically attractive and both profane and loud in their conversations. They were accidently hospitable and hosted huge and lengthy parties that were often punctuated by drunken brawls which left holes in the walls. All merry people at heart, they revelled in practical jokes, had babies galore without benefit of marriage, competed and excelled at school, on the sports field and in the work place. They enthralled my mother.

The Supreme Fact of the matter is that we have (all of us) come to love each other without condition or understanding. Every now and then we'll take a stab at the latter, but it's a pretence really. Understanding has too many conditions on it.

At almost fifty, I've still got them all - mum, dad, Katarina, Pat, Bo, John, Jenni & Aaron. We've all gathered others (spouses, descendants, friends, enemies) and had experiences that have added to the alchemy.

I guess they each have their own angles, takes and beliefs on the Family. But these and all subsequent postings are my memory and my memoir. Welcome.