Waitangi weekend and visit to our 95 year old Granma

Our lil' princess, my sister at our visit to Granma

Over Waitangi weekend we had a very special visit with our 95 year old Granma. She is very special in our family as she is the last of her generation born 1919 in Samoa and has shared with me so much over the years about earlier days. She even remembered that Waitangi day was a day that Maori celebrated as a special holiday that is in fact now celebrated for all New Zealanders.

I feel blessed that my children have gotten to know their granma as I never got to meet my maternal Granma and middle namesake Faamotu of whom I wrote a poem about (to feature when my poetry collection is published) and the same for my maternal Great Granma Eleni of whom I was named after as Helen. No photos survived from either of their years, a zero carbon footprint.

We were able to laugh together, especially as my Gran loves to 'egg' my lil' sister on about listening and helping me with my children as a young and single woman. She also spoke about never smoking throughout her life and not drinking (alcohol). She is quite inspirational as her faith in God is deep and strong and loves praying with us.

I remember how she travelled with me to Samoa for a few weeks and financially supported me with the airfare, back in 1988, it assisted me in collating information for my fieldwork for my first Masters degree. We lived on her family land near the town of Apia in Matautu and I would walk into the town regularly in the mornings to research in the Nelson library. It was also through her contacts that I was able to visit Falealupo in Savaii and gather ancient stories from Aeau, a high chief from that village, for my thesis.

I have a lot to be thankful for in my supportive family and I hope that I can be a blessing to her as much as she has been to me over the years. I also hope that I can be of service to my family as one of the important Samoan proverbs is "o le ala i le pule o le tautua" which means the way to authority is through serving (your family etc.) and my granma, the matriarch of our family is a good example of that to us.