Hillary | Kelvin Grove, Manawatū

“I’m a member of the Rose City quilting club here in Palmerston North, and our club donated over 105 quilts to the the Palmerston North City Council Welfare unit, and talking to one of the ladies who was at the collection point, she said she had seen so much distress and pain during the lock-down, that if she didn’t smile, she would cry, and it was just so sad to think that there are people out there hurting that badly and they’re on their own.

But it was great to know that the Palmerston North City Council Welfare unit was actually trying to help some of these people.

A friend of mine, her daughter had cancer, and she died quite quickly and quite unexpectedly and her granddaughter felt really challenging, she’s been torn between a grandparent and her father, which is really sad, and I said to her, all you can do is just be there, listen and basically be a friend. Just keep listening. Doesn’t matter. As long as you listen to somebody and smile, and empathise with them, that’s basically the best you can do in that moment, if you can’t do anything else.

I think in today’s technology, it’s a real challenge to get people to communicate. People don’t have conversations. I find so many people are looking at a screen, or they seem to be quite isolated in themselves, and I think it’s really important that people can have conversations and can listen, and continue to do that, and encourage that, because otherwise people become really isolated. I think we’ve been hijacked a wee bit by IT, and I think we need to learn to talk and listen more to people for our mental and physical wellbeing.

I grew up in the King Country, in Taumaranui. I’m a retired Registered Nurse, and I’ve only been retired a couple of years. I still miss work, and I value my friends, and my family, and my grandchildren, and I discovered since I’ve been retired that you can be really silly and have lots of fun with your grandchildren, and no-one actually thinks you’re odd. But I just think being able to talk to people, to have a conversation – that’s one of the reasons why I think libraries are really important, because some people are so isolated now. We just need to encourage people to look after our neighbours and care for each other. Goes a long way.”