82
Not Out!! –Feb 6 2017 ...Promise you -No Trump stuff here-especially today.
Why? When the whole chaotic world is involved
inTrumping in all directions –good-bad and ugly.
It’s simple.Several reasons.TODAY is FEB 6.
First 65 years ago this morning a young lonely woman
cared for in a London Salvation Army home for unmarried mothers –was giving
birth in Clapton Hospital. She’d been married only a months before but was still
alone in the big city where she was expected to have her baby adopted.
It so happened that the big city was a sad sad place
to be that morning.Kind new immigrant
West Indian nurses left the
expectant Mum with her legs strapped up as was the custom for a break. She had been in labour
for two days but chose that time for the
exquisite beautiful baby girl to arrive. An
exquisite treasure of a baby girl
who was never to be adopted.The joy of
this wonderful new human arrival was overshadowed by the loud, sonorous tolling
bells in that sad big city. Yes, the
King had died. King George died and that day Princess Elizabeth with her new husband
in Africa became the Queen of England.
Years have passed and my wonderful daughter the
eldest of my four children is 65 today.Happy Birthday Glenda. Read on –this very
special Hz special poem
True the figures don’t add up for an 82 Not Outer because
I am actually 84 this July –but the Blog name stands.
POEM FOR
GLENDA MARIA BORN FEB.6TH
1952.
first written
and read once by Hazel Menehira for CHRISTMAS 2001
From the moment you chose your parents
you embedded
yourself close in my soul -
you planted
yourself securely.
Now I can not
imagine it any other way.
Thus firmly
settled you
rejected all
attempts to move you on.
I think you chuckled at my sobbed entreaties
laughed at
physical attempts of hot gin nutmeg
fainting fits
from countless hot baths.
Then defiantly rejected medications
of mad old women
stuck in their
Victorian views
and long black skirts.
Tenaciously you
held on to me.
Through months
of lonely alien
nights,long days of scrubbing,
endless tiles
for Salvationist shiny
shoes to march
and sing the praises
of a Saviour who
could
welcome the unfortunate.
And you a Spark
of Divinity,
A little Love
Child grizzled
your way into a
city of sorrow.
A beautiful
creature of such joy,
Born between
tolling bells as a great
king's life ebbed away.
February the
sixth 1952.
I didn't care
about the king.
Five days of
lonely labour with
no hand to clasp
until I
counted your
fingers and your toes.
fingers and
toes. fingers,toes.
Adorable fingers
and toes.
They all loved
you then.
Those who said
it had all been for the best.
"Whose
best?" I asked myself.
They had not
counted upon you
and I defeating
their intentions.
"Whose
best?" I still question.
So young to face
the miracle of birth
alone without a
loving hand to hold.
West Indian
nurses in that London ward
did not have
time for sentiment.
‘Give birth you
will my girl.
The city is in
mourning and
look how lucky
you are.
It's life you're
facing here so push!
It's life's
longing for itself you meet.’
The bells tolled
and you suddenly brought
sunshine into a
grey and grieving land.
Later you
toddled chubby, a strange
child
belted backwards in a stately pram
we walked long
miles for you to face
the wind ahead
of me and lead the way.
Strange child
with fads, fancies and few
laughs unless a
Grandad flapped his arms
like some old
crow to make you chuckle.
or in the snow
relax and smile at pink piglets.
noses white with
flakes and wrinkled.
Within no time
at all.
after you'd pinched your brother's
toes
and stolen family hearts,
you planned and schemed
unlikely tales.
The monster one
telling me brother
fell overboard
when sailing to
this long white cloud.
The great ship
stopped, all engines still
until you both
revealed his hiding place.
Bed rest and
tranquilizers for three
weeks for that
pumped into me,
not you.
Later, the
schoolgirl,
ballet dancer,
actress,
student of
renown you
made school a
hard act
for siblings to
follow,
whilst young men
followed you
despite the
frowns of grandparents.
Then like your
mother you loved
generously, not
wisely, but too well
In late teen
years.
Now you have them all.
four children
who adore you,
may say they
don’t, but do
their partners
too. Mokopunas,
fine strong
beautiful. Friends to
surround you. Mum with no regrets
you are my only daughter.
A jewel, a
taonga ,a shining
gem still firmly
set inside my soul.
Now only the memories in my head and heart recall Feb 6
1952-the pain of those days has passed.
‘This too will pass’ is the great saying –so lets be positive that all the current Trumping, politicising,speculation, discrimination and violence will too.
Yes Feb 6 is special.
In Aotearoa the country where I lived 50 years ( before
settling here in an accepting Far North Queensland culture ) this weekend is a celebration for New
Zealand Day – a reflection of the Waitangi Day when the treaty with Maori tribes was signed.
Blessings to all Whanau, friends and my Aussie mates
–so many of them now.
