At Last, the Tears

First it was the shock. Then it was the shovelling, then the door-knocking, then the food delivery and ‘informal’ counselling.  We have tried, in our myriad ways, to help.  Adrenalin relentlessly drove us through the early climactic days.  The sheer intensity of physical effort successfully kept the emotions at bay.

That can never last, nor should it. Today the emotion came, sweeping over us all like a tsunami. 

A memorial service was held at Burnside High yesterday, for the victims from just one tragic address – the CTV building.  Even more specifically, the staff and students of King’s Education, the language school housed on the 3^rd floor. 

Out of the 180 presumed dead across the city, 80 (71 students, 9 staff) are from King’s Education alone.  Five staff, all 71 students, were foreign citizens.  28 were from Japan. New Zealand was, effectively, remembering the visitors among us – they who chose this land for the opportunity of a lifetime. 

A mournful flute caresses the faces of cheerful students, recently deceased, their trusting smiles beamed onto a giant screen before a packed, and hushed, auditorium. 

Ngāi Tahu’s Mark Solomon gives the whakatau.  Dean Peter Beck officiates (“This is so hard”.)  Mayor Bob Parker apologises to the world for the anger of Papatuanuku. 

We all pray. 

Prue Taylor, widow of deceased head of the school, Brian, reads the lesson – dignity and beauty personified in the moment of grief. Two pākehā men, members of the Board, struggle through their tributes – Southern men, constricted of throat.  Pui Mungkorn, a recent graduate, bids farewell to four Thai compatriots in beautiful, halting English.  Margaret Aydon, staff survivor, bespeaks her love for nine colleagues.

Yet it is the music that brings on the tears.  Graeme Wardop’s Let It Be – my very own vintage.  Once the tears come, they just roll on of their own accord.  Emily Twemlow sings You Are My Sunshine – the school favourite. She staggers back, flops into her chair, wracked with sobbing.   

Gerardo Torres, of Peru, sings a song of farewell to his sister Elsa, head teacher, deceased.  Raw Latin emotion sweeps over New Zealand’s cosmopolitan crowd.

I speak later with Chan, Malaysian Kiwi who provided homestays for King’s students. On Monday 21^st, he had introduced four young Filipina women to King’s Education.  They had registered, taken tests, and got themselves ready for their first day of tuition in English on the Tuesday.  Tuesday, 22^nd, they had duly turned up.  Day 1 was their last.

Chan himself had been in the building that morning to see the Director, and had walked out at 11.30 a.m., into the fresh air.

And when the broken-hearted people living in the world agree,
There will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is still a chance that they will see,
There will be an answer, let it be.