Grace | Hill Park
“My upbringing has kind of been a merging between a European home and a Māori home, because my mum’s European and my dad’s Māori.
They’ve tried to merge both cultures together so that me and my brother can have a taste of both. I guess it means that me and my brother are a lot more community-minded than a lot of our friends who only grew up with one culture.
Family’s important to me, and also the idea of being able to live basically; like having a nice job and doing what I love with that job, and being able to see, how the community around me is growing, and improving, and how that benefits me and my family.
Probably earlier this year when my nephew was born, because over the last few years I lost my uncle and my grandfather, and then my nephew was born in May, and he’s like brought the family a lot closer together now. My brother and his girlfriend were breaking up around that time as well, and he brought them back together. So, I’m pretty thankful for that.
I think it was last year my grandfather passed away. He’d had dementia for the last few years so we were basically watching him disappear for awhile now. When he died it wasn’t really him anymore, and then my nephew was born earlier this year in May, and I guess he kind of helped heal all the grief there with losing my grandfather because I don’t know if my mum was really over it or moving forward from it when my nephew came, but it has brought the family together. Last week my nephew, brother and his girlfriend were all visiting family in Australia and even though they’re in Australia I felt like they got to enjoy what we were enjoying here.
It can be quite different, like the main thing I can see is funerals. For my grandfather, even though he was European, he was my mum’s father, we still did the Māori thing of bringing him home with us. It was an open casket and for the days leading up to the funeral we had time to say goodbye, and get used to the fact that he was not there anymore. With others who have passed away on my mum’s side of the family, it’s normally that the body stays at the funeral home, and you only go for the funeral, and I felt, comparing it to the Māori side, where you have time to grieve and be with the body, that I never really move on when I don’t get that time. That’s one major aspect that I’ve seen that’s different. I feel like family and your past means a lot more for the Māori side, because my dad’s side, every time we have reunions, they always get together and try to figure out where they fit in the family tree, if they’re meeting for the first time, but on my mum’s side of the family, that doesn’t happen. Like, you just meet and that’s pretty much it. You just talk about nothing really, until it’s time to leave, pretty much. So I always feel like family and history is more important to the Māori side.
I think it’s really important, because I’ve met a few people in my life who they just seem really jaded, and it’s really hard to talk to them or interact with them, because they just don’t want to, or they don’t understand why you want to, and that’s really hard. I think it’s a good thing to always look at the positive aspects of your life and be thankful for them, and always be grateful for the people around you.”
