The first farewell

Tu Tangata, Issue 14, 1 October 1983, Page 31

The first farewell

G. King-Tamehana

Tribe: Ngati Paoa sub tribe of Waikato Parents: both alive and living in Otautahi Education: Tokoroa High. Adult student at Aorere Coll. Age: old, too old, pea Children: 2, 1 of each.

...the fire burns, the flame glows, I am warmed by it. The flame begins to flicker, the flame begins to waver, the flame grows smaller....

...the flame will never go out.

...the fire burns....

Driving south along Puriri Road, you can’t help but see it. It’s there. The farm where my nanny used to live. There used to be an old house too, an old yellow house, but some people pulled it down. All that’s left now are some old fruit trees. The big karaka tree that the tyre swing hung from is still there too. That’s where she used to live, and I lived with her. I remember the summers. Eating watermelon till we almost burst and picking blackberries till dark, lying in the long grass looking up at skylarks playing in the sky. These memories, my childhood years, seem foreign to me now, but sometimes, I wish... I wish, I could return to that place, that time, and live once again in the warm of my Nanny’s farm.

...the fire burns, the flame g10w5....

I don’t remember her face.

Sometimes I shut my eyes tight and try to picture her but I can’t. I remember things about her though. Like her sitting on the upturned bucket by the water-tank, with my ‘bloomers' on her head. Nanny had an ouside toilet and everytime I went, that’s how she waited for me.

She always wore black skirts. At home she wore them inside out, when we went visiting or to town, she would turn her skirt the right way around to show the clean side.

Nanny collected a ‘pension’. I didn’t know what a ‘pension’ was then, but a day before it was due, Nanny could always be seen lifting up the lino, searching for butts, which she’d take apart and re-roll. She refused to smoke what my city aunts called ‘tailormades’ and preferred tobacco (which came in a green and blue box) from which she’d roll thick ‘smokes’. I remember her patience, her kindness, and I remember loving her.

...the fire burns, the flame glows, I am warmed by it....

We must have looked a pair my nanny and me as we waited for the bus. Her in her black skirt (turned the right way around) and slippers; and me in my frilly blue town dress, (which also served for weddings, birthdays and other special occasions) lacy white socks and black patent leather shoes. I used to think I looked neat.

When we arrived in town, Nanny would go into a building and come out again a few minutes later. Sometimes we’d see some of her friends. She always stopped to talk to them. They always spoke Maori. I used to squeeze her hand for her to hurry up. She’d say something to her friends and by the way they looked at me, I got the feeling that it was me she was talking about, they’d all laugh and hand in hand Nanny and I would move on.

...the fire burns, the flame glows, and I am warmed by it. The flame begins to flicker....

I always slept with her. Even when my cousins came to stay, I wouldn’t let them sleep with us. It was our bed, Nanny’s and mine. They had to sleep on a mattress in the sitting room. Our bed was warm and soft. I’d snuggle up to Nanny at night and tell her that she was my Nanny and I’d never, never leave her.

I knew she loved the other kids too. That was Nanny. Everybody loved her. Sometimes she’d reach for her tobacco and roll one of her thick smokes. They always made her cough. The smoke smelt funny and it lingered in the room with the smell of Nanny’s Lavender water. And I’d go to sleep with my nose full of the smell that was her.

...the fire burns, the flame glows, I am warmed by it. The flame begins to flicker, the flame begins to waver....

I didn’t know what a ‘T.V.’ was. We didn’t have one. Nanny had a ‘wireless’. Music came out of a wireless, music and a story called ‘Doctor Paul’. Nanny listened to her story, we’d usually go down to the creek. Nanny to do the washing, and me to splash in the water. Sometimes I’d go under the water and when I came up Nanny would be doing a ‘Haka’. Shaking the fist of one hand at me and patting her chest with the other. I thought she looked funny, but then she’d start coughing.

Together we’d hang the washing out on the fence, to dry

Nanny always made our bread, I loved it and I loved her. She didn’t hit me, she growled at me, she threatened me a few times, but she never hit me, not once.

...the fire burns, the flame glows and I am warmed by it. The flame begins to flicker, the flame begins to waver....

They told me— Nanny’s dead. I didn’t understand dead? Cows died, flies too, birds? Yes they died. But Nanny? my Nanny? yes they said dead. Nanny’s dead. I heard some people talking. They said she died from ‘T.V.’ Lies! We didn’t have a T.V. only a wireless. How could she die from something we didn’t have?

They put her in a box, and placed her in the whare-nui. Her old friends sat around her. Sometimes crying, sometimes singing, but always, always wailing. Eerie wailing that I grew to hate. People came to see her and said goodbye to her and then I understood. She had left me. And I buried my head in my pillow and cried and cried.

...the fire burns, the flame glows, I am warmed by it. The flame begins to flicker, the flame begins to waver, the flame grows smaller....

It rained then. Not heavily. Just like someone weeping. A lot of people came to say goodbye to her. A lot of old ladies in black skirts. I remember wondering if they had their skirts turned the right way around. I wore my frilly blue dress. They buried her on the side of a mountain.

I remember how wet it was that day, how wet and how cold. The family gathered to farewell Nanny, I guess they must have been cold too, but we held on to each other tightly, and we kept each other warm.

...the fire that is life is eternal.

No-one is absolutely sure of its birth, though some have guessed.

...the fire burns.

sometimes the flame is bright, and gives out warmth sometimes the flame dies down and warms nothing

...it never goes out completely. there is always new life to keep the fire burning