My silence of 8 months started pretty innocuously. Actually, it started pretty joyously! I had just started a new job and moved into my own, awesome flat in Auckland's North Shore suburb of Birkenhead. A view of Waitemata Harbour and the SkyTower and the twinkling lights of the Big Little City. Or is it the Little Big City? 45 minutes or so from wicked surfbreaks on either coast, and handy access to "rocking" neighbourhoods like Ponsnoreby [zzzz] and only 18 minutes door to door from work. Not too shabby!
I had just celebrated my birthday-slash-housewarming when, on the other side of the world, my family was receiving the horrific and devastating news that my mother had been diagnosed with metastatic cancer. I received the phone call one day at work. It was every immigrant's nightmare, really.
For immigrants back in the day, there were no options. People died while you basked in your colonial glory, only to receive the news six months later by waterlogged letter, or from some fresh-off-the-boat shouting yesteryear's news over a cup of billy tea.
But this is 2013. A year to the day that I arrived in New Zealand, I was on a plane to Canada to be with my Mum. And lucky too, as my Mum passed away 16 short days after my arrival home.
Those were precious days and many lifetimes were lived in that short time.
I didn't make any public announcement of what was happening to my family. It was so out-of-the-blue, so incomprehensible, and, I felt, so private, that it could not be shared. I have been silent since then because life has been so precarious, so hard-won, and I just didn't have the heart. Grief is an unruly troll that comes out of his box whenever he damn pleases ... and doesn't make for great copy, even from New Zealand. Until you start putting him in his place.
It's less than 6 months since my Mum died. We have barely begun to grieve her sudden, early and tragic death. I have just received another phone call. My Dad has been diagnosed with metastatic cancer, and the prognosis is not good.
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| It's Springtime in New Zealand, and Cancer Society Daffodil Day. |
But this time, it's different. This time, I'm making the news public. This time, I'm letting everyone in. Because I need the support. My family needs the support. We can't go it alone. I can't repeat fifty times what is happening. I need to tell you, and then to let go and let you help me and my family in whatever way you can. Whether it's a kind word, or spreading the word, a cardboard box for my packing, a meal, a laugh, or a donation to the Cancer Society. All of that is compassion that is gratefully received by me and my family.
That is, perhaps, the beauty of the social. The beauty of having circles. The beauty of being paid attention to. It's not just for hits of endorphins or exercising the stuttering mind. It is communication. It is the purpose of media. We are nothing if not social beings, as they say. On some level, we are also all family.
So let our hope, prayers, wishes, and beliefs come through this and every other channel available for communication and support. And let no one say that to hope, pray, wish, or believe is the easy way out ... because I know from experience it is the hard way. But it is the only way worth going, and best done in numbers.
We are going to hope, pray, wish and believe.
Soon I will be on a plane back to Canada, and there will be much life yet for all of us to live, full of mystery and full of joy and pain. And how much the better knowing it will be done with maximum support, and the maximum power of our wondrous and amazing times.
