My Parents

My parents met in the sixties in Wellington, New Zealand as immigrants seeking a brighter future and a way of supporting their respective families back home in Samoa. My mother was born in Moata'a and came from a big family.  She was one of ten children and that wasn't even counting her half-brother and three half-sisters. My father came from an even bigger family.  He was born in Faleula where his maternal grandfather was a faifeau LMS but he grew up in Fasito'o-uta with nine brothers and three sisters (not including four adopted siblings).  Life was tough but he was tougher.  He left school at a very early age and worked as a driver and then as a motor mechanic in Apia and later on in Savaii. 

As a young child growing up in New Zealand, I always remember my father telling us to address them (our parents) by their first names.  This was when every other kid I knew called their parents 'Mum' and 'Dad'.  He would always say to us, "E le o ni palagi tatou" and would tell us to speak only Samoan at home.  That was the rule and so when he was at home, it is safe to say that we were pretty quiet lol.  Another thing that I remember was the disappointment of not being able to have friends from school over to play and especially not being allowed to sleep over at our friends' houses.  At the time, I thought that it was soooooooo unfair but now (as a parent myself) I understand that they were just very protective of us.  When we came back to New Zealand after 11 years in Samoa, I saw an item on the news about people who had been molested as children on sleepovers at their friends' houses around the time when I was a kid and how they had been so traumatised that they had never told anyone about it until now.  I sent a silent prayer of thanks to the man upstairs for the fact that we did have such protective parents because it could easily have been our story too.

Of all the lessons that my parents have taught us over the years, the one that always comes to mind is this, "Ia outou alolofa i tatou aiga".  Now, when we lived in Samoa, we served our matai who is my father's eldest brother.  My parents ran the family business and met all the usual village commitments.  We only returned to New Zealand when one of my father's sisters moved to Samoa to retire with her husband.  They took over the family business and we came back here.  A few years after settling back into our lives in NZ, my parents adopted twin girls. They were the children of one of my cousins (on my mother's side) who had died a few years back when the girls were very young.  The girls joined us when they were 6 years old.  A few years later they adopted two brothers (their father is first cousins with my father).  The first brother came over when he was 13 and the second younger boy when he turned 14.  2009 saw another young cousin from my father's side come over (aged 17) and finally in 2010 a young female cousin also from my dad's side arrived (aged 14).  My parents brought over 6 children from Samoa to give them an opportunity to get an education and decent jobs to help support their families back home.  On top of that, they send money to family members in Samoa who call them for help for faalavelave or for church commitments etc. If that isn't 'alofa' I don't know what is. 

I have so much to thank my parents for.  I am grateful for the fact that they are both with us today and that my children get to spend time with them everyday.  I laugh when I see how gentle they are with my children because I think back to moments in my childhood being chased with a salulima by my mother (usually for a good reason) and think just how good my kids have it now. I thank God for blessing me with parents who have always been there for me and my siblings all our lives, for their support and all that they do for us and for our children.