Why the number 3 is special to me
Ngā hua e toru. Koinei ētehi huatau ka hāngaia e māua ko Kara ki ngā kaupapa o Te Rau Hihiri. Three outcomes, three main kaupapa or pātai. I’m not sure where this ‘framework’ came from, but it has helped to focus and narrow the scope for big ideas people like her and I when planning events.
The number three, however, has a deeper connection for me come to think of it. I’ve probably said that number more than any other number throughout my life as it’s the number of tamariki I have. Tokotoru āku tamariki, I have three children. Girl, boy, boy. It’s one of those questions that comes up frequently during kōrero whakawhanaungatanga.
Of course, I love all three of my tamariki equally. But I also love them differently.
Āku tamariki e toru
Tāku mātāmua and the only girl; my best friend for life. In so many ways the better version of me, the one who I’m totally and utterly myself around. The pōtiki, a beautiful child. He reaps the benefits that come with parents that have been parenting for far too long. His father’s namesake but a mumma’s boy, which I choose to lap up.
The natural tendencies towards the eldest and only girl, and the youngest child has made it possible and kind of acceptable then, to slightly favour the middle child and our first-born son. I’m also a middle child after all (girl, boy, boy, girl (me), girl). Our middle child is the only child that I planned, and meticulously so, right down to the day of his conception and birth. Let me explain.
My partner Joe had been living in Australia for six months, and we were trying to decide whether our daughter and I would move there with him. I planned a holiday and arrived in the GC on the last day of the fertile phase of my cycle (this gives you increased chances of getting pregnant with a boy – look it up). If it worked and I fell pregnant, we would move. If not, then he would return home and life in Aotearoa would continue as normal with more unplanned things instore.
Well, it worked and I was hapū with a boy! At 12 weeks pregnant my seven-year-old big girl and I moved to the GC leaving behind our amazing whānau and village. Without our whānau close by, I hoped he would be born early, the day after our daughter finished the school term so she could be around to help me whilst Dad earned the paycheck. Many hikoi ensued and raspberry leaf tea became water, and like I’d planned, he arrived the first day of school holidays. Our Aussie born ‘Mossie’, he was the first pepi we decided to give a Māori ingoa. Tiaroa (after my great grandfather) is his middle name.
Doted on by big sissy, he talked really early. It was as though he was born talking. He was an ultra curious and inquisitive child which is one of the many reasons why I think he is a lot like me. One day when he was about 6 or 7 he asked me “Mum….Dad, Sayla and JJ are Māori because they are brown aye? And you and me are pākehā because we are white?”. Stab Me In The Heart! “No son, he tama Māori koe”.
I remember this day like it was yesterday. Our blond haired, kiritea boy acutely aware of what he didn’t have. Expressing so simply a feeling I had also felt many times throughout my childhood but had never had the courage to speak about – a silent question forever on my lips.
Timelapse through life….going home to my marae for the first time at age 16; falling in love with an HP boy; having a child young and knowing that I wanted her to know her whakapapa; a growing connection to our turangawaewae in Rawhiti through regular haerenga home (our babies at their marae on my side in Rāwhiti, Bay of Islands).
Perhaps it was the half a dozen or so Māori roles in a public policy career; the start-stop-start reo Māori journey; using what little reo I had to korero to my Nan during her final days; our taokete hononga with the Sciascia whānau and sitting at the feet of Pōua Piri.
Or maybe it was the absolute explosion of all things ao Māori in Māori and then mainstream media; the evolution of kura auraki (kia ora Ka Hikitia) and an epic whānau group organising kaupapa such as powhiri to Matariki at Discovery School in Whitby before it was really a thing; starting reo classes again but this time sticking with it for 3 years; a growing friend group on the same vibe; my first kura reo at Te Taumata i te Nōta; a year being sober; Te Rau Hihiri; Kurawaka; kids growing up; and 50 the next big milestone for me.
I can’t narrow it down to one thing, but rather a gradual process. There are many analogies I can borrow from to help visualise the journey. Be it a dormant seed awakening, growing and blossoming; or the metamorphosis of an anuhe to a purerehua; or perhaps even te orokohanga. But it dawned on me one day around 2020, sitting in the Wall Walk workshop with the amazing Dr Simone Bull. I look the way I do for a reason and my tupuna have a plan for me. And I’m going to bloody well make them proud and do what I can to advance their moemoea. Ko ngā mokopuna te take.
Which brings me to last Saturday, our mokopapa. The Herewini household had been in prep mode for a few weeks already. The garden immaculate with new taonga and toi in place. Karakia and whakatau mihimihi, dial a MC (Miss Sayla) setting the scene - “flowy” the āhuatanga for the day.
With kai timotimo underway in the kīhini, we settled into a nice and intimate time with Vianney, her tauira Keanyn, and my taokete Ana whilst we drew her up. We took inspiration from one of our tupuna Harata Rewiri Tarapata, and Vianney revealed what was just beneath the surface. I loved her straight away.
Rukuhia ki te ao o Rarohenga, kua tā mai a Vianney i roto i te aroha o tōku whānau. Kātahi, ka mutu te mahi a Vianney, ka whakapuaki tōku hoa matenga ki a rātou ko te whānau. Heke iho ngā roimata, ka rere ngā karanga, ka whakahihiri te ihi me te wehi o ngā kaihaka. Ātaahua rawa. Ahakoa he whānau taiohi mātou, kua tūtuki ngā whāinga, ara ko te whakatinanatanga o ngā moemoea o ō mātou mātua tūpuna.
Kua whakapuaki tō tātou taonga tuku iho
I te wā o tōku whakatakotoranga ki te tēpu, ka kitea e au ngā kanohi. Tuatahi, ngā kanohi o ōku mātua kua wehe ki te pō. He poho kererū rātou. Auē te mamae, tangi hotuhotu te ngākau. The last time we were all gathered in my sister’s lounge, huddled together on the floor, was for Mum’s tangi. All the memories from six years ago flooded back for us all.
Ka kite hoki au i ētehi atu kanohi, ngā kanohi kāore anō au kia tūtaki. Ko ngā kanohi o āku mokopuna kei te heke mai. Ahakoa he pango, he kiritea rānei ō rātou kiri, kei te mōhio rātou, āe he Māori ahau, he Māori tātou. Koinei te take.
E toru ngā mea, ngā mea nunui. He hīmene rongonui i te hāhi. He pai te whakamarama i roto i te hīmene mēnā koira ōu whakapono. Ki a au, ko ngā mea nunui, ngā mea e toru - ko Sayla, ko Keelan, ko JJ. These three, my absolute treasures, and their bubbas.
