In coming to New Zealand, the airlines allowed three bags per person, two larger plus one carry-on, so that meant 18 bags for six people! Not wanting to end up in New Zealand with 18 hard cases and have to find space for them, I was able to source a variety of soft sizes and got all our bedding into them, plus clothing, cutlery and breakables we wanted to hand carry. Putting our families’ pictorial histories into boxes and thinking about them traveling over the deepest part of the world’s oceans brought home the reality of what we were attempting. 

Together, we thought and talked of our ancestors, how they had gotten to America, and what their lives were like after their migrations. It was also difficult asking our children to realize the end of their childhoods. All their memories of childhood would be in America.

This is a very American thing to be doing…we are applying our belief that we have been created with unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we prayed together as the plane took off from Los Angeles. Landing in Auckland, a greeting party handed me a gorgeous arrangement of native flowers and foliage. I burst out crying. When asked what was wrong, all I could say was, “So many hopes and dreams…” 

We were about to begin experiencing what immigrants all over the world have always experienced: so many hopes and dreams. It was indeed a very American thing to be doing.

So, what has life been like? 

It has been a real life with events that would have happened anywhere we lived coming to pass. These have included the deaths of my parents in Florida three years ago, and then Tom’s most recently.

The first two months we lived on the North Island in Snell’s Beach, near Warkworth, about an hour and twenty minutes north of Auckland. Auckland, while it is often considered THE place to be for the “movers and shakers,” just impressed me as another Los Angeles: too much traffic.  We rented a holiday house which had incredible views of native bush and beach and my sons were soon invited on many trips to the ocean to surf. This part of the country is very pastoral, very lush--so deeply green, it looks like black. We arrived in July and this is winter time in the Godzone. The strength of the nearly cyclonic rain, mainly at night, surprised me. Also, most houses in New Zealand do not have central heating. Tom used to say, In New Zealand, we heat rooms, not houses. 

Because my children grew up in the country outside of Pittsburgh, I was happy when a license for a TV station was purchased in Christchurch, the country’s second largest city in the South Island, although it meant packing up again and having our small container load (we got rid of most everything and shipped only paintings, books and one antique rocking chair my children wanted us to keep) rerouted. 

Christchurch from the start was wonderful and still is. It is also much drier. It is a city that was planned in England and was started by four ships of settlers who arrived in 1850 in the quaint port town of Lyttelton, where I now live with my youngest daughter. After arriving, those immigrants had to hike over the Port Hills before seeing the vast Canterbury Plains with the majestic Southern Alps floating in the distance. One pioneer woman had a baby on the way over the hills and one man dropped dead after getting to the top, like Moses, and viewing the “promised land” on the other side.

Money from our savings and the inheritance were used to rent a large home the first year for about $700US per month. For the first time in the children’s lives they had their own rooms. We had many visitors from the North Island as we discovered Kiwis, as well as being a hospitable people, travel and visit easily.

Tom wasn’t receiving a salary as the station struggled to survive. Christchurch is a city loved by its inhabitants, and teachers, especially, don’t leave it easily: it was difficult for me to find an English teaching job. Instead, one as nanny to a 3-month old boy named Max turned up. It was comforting to hold him and realize that he was just starting out in New Zealand, too. Our oldest daughter worked with her dad and had the best year of her life.  But, love was calling her back to America. We watched in amazement when, at 19, she negotiated a salary (even before her dad had one!) and saved money for a one-way ticket to Wisconsin.

When the first year ended, we both had salaries. By then, grant money with a youth worker training program added to my nanny job. Our combined incomes with three children now in the home were below average and so we qualified for Family Assistance. The New Zealand government tops up incomes, not with a yearly tax return, but with fortnightly payments so that families with lower incomes are taken care of. Even so, we were able to use savings and qualify for a mortgage on a family home in good “nick” in the best school zone for approximately $85,000US.

The waiting time for government benefits when we came into the country was one year. Now, it is longer with immigrants required to have enough money to live on for the first two years. The sad realities of immigration are stories of those who come from non-English speaking countries, especially, becoming discouraged. These are stories of highly educated men, doctors even, who commit suicide because they are not finding appropriate work and depart knowing their families are in a better place.

A book I read (can’t remember the name of it) about living in other countries said people generally do three things:

1) they completely reject their former culture and immerse themselves in the new one
2) they set up, as much as possible, the first country within the second country or
3) they find a happy balance between preserving some of the old within the new. It seems obvious to me that the third way, for the first generation at least, has got to be the most sensible.

Holiday celebrations are important to any country. And Thanksgiving has probably been the most difficult holiday to give up. It is such a good one. Every country should have a Thanksgiving Day! Our first year here we were told about a Thanksgiving Dinner Americans were organizing at a restaurant. We went, and while it was nice to hear all the stories about how people had gotten to New Zealand, frankly, I missed being with New Zealanders who are a very friendly people with unique accents, colorful expressions and, above all, ready good humor and laughter. 

On the health front, it seemed a miracle took place in our youngest daughter’s life. She had suffered from ear infections since she was six weeks old. She had been on every antibiotic created. The first time her ear began to hurt in New Zealand, I took her to a doctor and explained the history. The doctor told me that because her Eustachian tubes were small, antibiotics were only going to help in a limited way: she needed to learn to blow the tubes open herself! The doctor gave her some drops and taught her the procedure. She has never had an ear infection since. And the visit didn’t cost us anything as children under 16 are subsidized. It is the same with dental care.

Within our first year of being here, Tom was able to go off one of his blood pressure medications. I have a wonderful memory of us as a couple having become Kiwified: I am standing in the kitchen. I say to Tom who is around the corner in the living area, would you like something hot to drink, love?  He answers back, Yes, Please. This is not a scene that would have happened in our life in America, not that it couldn’t have. But, tea breaks at work, time for sitting down and having a “cuppa,” speaking endearments and just generally being polite, are part of most daily lives here. Little things like these are what make beautiful memories.

In New Zealand, the strongly bi-cultural aspect of government benefits everyone. The Maori people were actually among the first immigrants to these islands. They traveled by waka, or a long carved, canoe-like vessel, from Polynesian isles and arrived some 900 years ago. The “white man” came to New Zealand at the end of the colonial era. The Treaty of Waitangi, signed by representatives of the Crown of England and the many Maori tribes in 1840 is the one document that is uniquely New Zealand’s.

New Zealand’s history as a nation really begins at about the same time as the westward movement in America and the California Gold Rush. There were horrible wars in New Zealand as the Moari fought the Crown, just as the Native Americans fought progression across and settlement on their lands.

Today, in contrast, the Maori have marae, or meeting places, right in the cities and towns throughout the country as well as on ancestral lands. Maori culture is a big part of every child’s New Zealand education. There is a Renaissance of Maori culture and language at this time. Respect and honor for indigenous peoples seems to bring everyone back to an awareness of how precious the land, the water and the air are.

Our second son, who is of African-American heritage benefits from this sensitivity as well. In America, he would just be another black kid, who hasn’t done so well in school, having to be taught to watch his back. Here, there is not as much prejudice or sadness of history to overcome. Because the Crown has to recognize the rights of another culture, there is more sensitivity to all cultures.

In New Zealand, a student can leave school at 16. They are given the dignity of being called a school leaver, not a “drop out.” There are many, many accessible programs for the student who chooses to do this. Everyone over the age of 20 has automatic entrance to University. My other son is at University and the cost for his completed degree will be approximately $8000US.

Almost three years ago, my father and mother died within seven weeks of each other. I wasn’t able to be in America for my father’s death, but my sister and I nursed our mother until she was gone. My aging parents and the distance had been a great concern for me, until a friend who immigrated told me about her father’s death years before in Canada. Her brother had gone on a hunting trip to a spot about four hours away from Toronto. A snow storm had begun when he received news of his father’s death. Because of the storm, it took him 19 hours to make a four hour trip. My friend’s comment was, “You get there when you get there.”

On June 30, 2003, Tom entered the hospital for heart surgery to replace his mitral valve. He had been scheduled to go down to Antarctica, his last great passion, to do a video project when a routine electrocardiogram spotted the problem. The medical condition ruled him out for the trip to the Ice. He was on a waiting list from November to the end of June when the surgery was done. On July 4, he died after heroic attempts by the doctors and nurses.

His heart didn’t start following the surgery, and he was kept on a machine I have dubbed “the resurrection machine” because they tried each day to start his heart again. The medical staff did their research and found that the longest anyone in the world had gone was seven days before brain damage began. They were willing to go 5 days. Tom’s mother and our oldest daughter arrived together on Day 3. They got him off the machine on Day 4, but pressure began to build up and we had to say Good Bye to him surrounded by friends and family.  After his death we heard from old friends in America who said, if he had been here, this never would have happened. He would have had the surgery months ago and still been here.

But, Tom didn’t feel that way, and I don’t either. He was happy to be in New Zealand and taking his place as part of the country on a waiting list. He was at peace being out of a health system where he was forced to have to think about grasping onto his life and becoming anxious if things weren’t going his way, turning himself into a fearful and demanding person as he faced possible death. 

George Washington, sick with the fever he had gotten from riding in the rain, said on his death bed, “I die hard.” Dying is not easy, whether it is from sickness, famine or war. Surely, part of our liberty as human beings has got to be living for something we believe is worth dying for, even if it is something as humble as being able to peacefully wait in line, spreading cheer, being kind to others in the hospital room with you who are waiting as well. All these things my husband was able to do, even as a stranger in a strange land.

There has been one time in my grief when I have wondered why we didn’t sell something and go to Australia earlier for the surgery—it would have been beyond our means in America where that kind surgery costs over $50,000US; here in New Zealand, the same surgery is $27,000NZ which is approximately $15,000US. Go figure. 

Kiwi thinking has offered the whole family a different perspective on death. Tom’s mother wanted to pay for the funeral expenses, but her son’s death was bringing back disturbing memories. She had lost her second husband just a few years before.

At the time of his death she had been told by the American funeral directors that if she did not pay in full the day before the funeral, they would not provide services. When she nervously asked the directors here when and how they wanted payment, they said, “Take your time. Don’t worry about it.”They also let us take the lead in what we wanted to do to honor Tom. I thought weeks might go by before he could be cremated as it had with my parents in Florida, but Tom was cremated the next day. The total cost for their services, including the cremation, organist and minister, was about $2500US.

Four weeks before Tom died, our first grandchild was born, a boy named Isaac, who is the child of our first son and his Kiwi wife. When my daughter-in-law told her father of my questioning whether we should have tried to have the surgery earlier, her dad said, “We have no guarantee that things would have turned out differently, and if Tom had died then, he never would have been able to see and hold Isaac.”  That is how a Kiwi thinks. They also think falling off the side of a mountain is a fine way to die!

Then, three weeks after Tom died, I was invited to come to America for a memorial service in Pittsburgh that coming October. I was unsettled about returning; I didn’t want to go and hear people say, are you coming back now?  While dwelling on this, I went to pick up some food (pizzas!) to farewell my oldest daughter who was returning to America the next day. It was dusk and I was anxious to get home, so I decided to make a U-turn. I was looking for car lights and failed to see a guy on a motorcycle that hadn’t turned his on.

Before I reached the middle of the road, he was up on the bonnet (hood) and down onto the road, his leg broken in two places. Immediately, shopkeepers and pedestrians were in the street to help the man and, remarkably, I thought, me, as well. I was naturally quite unsettled thinking, Three weeks ago my husband died, now I have almost killed a man. What am I doing here at the ends of the earth? But, as I watched the kindness of strangers to the man and felt that same warmth towards me as I was invited into a shop for a cup of tea and to use the phone, I realized I might just be where I was supposed to be.

What would have been a nightmare in US courts, ended up a gentle lesson in New Zealand civics. Two months later, I was summoned to court on charges of Careless Driving Resulting in Injury. In the courtroom my expectation was that things would be adversarial: in America my insurance company would have been suing his insurance company; it could have gone on for years.  Hours would have been spent beforehand thinking defensively, trying to create a plea of innocence on my side, guilt on other fellow’s. It is not that way in New Zealand. Retaining a lawyer wasn’t even necessary.

Using the solicitor on duty and having explained the circumstances in a letter, I pleaded guilty and paid a fine of approximately $150US because the judge considered the accident on the low end of carelessness. I also paid approximately $1000US to the victim in reparations for lost income. In New Zealand, the government pays 80% of a worker’s salary for any kind of accident while recovering. The victim was entitled to ask me for the 20% difference. I could have protested, but I told the court I was happy to pay it: I was glad he was alive. 

Opportunities to experience other ways of doing things brought us peace. Since coming to New Zealand, we have lived better and Tom died better. Could America make these changes? I don’t know. It seems like a “huge ask,” as we say in New Zealand. But, being shown a better way to live and encounter the trials of life and, then, responding positively seems wise. America is still a wonderful country. I am reminded of that each time I visit. It is the current leading nation. New Zealanders and Americans get along very well. Kiwis admire American patriotism. It is the place of my birth. It is the country that proclaimed truths that are self-evident, like Life, Liberty, the pursuit of happiness…which can even include how we face death.

Two years ago, a job teaching English to international students in a public high school came my way. Now, I pay the top tax rate! Recently, a young Chinese student wanted the subject of her three-paragraph assignment to be the Statue of Liberty. Concerned that I might appear to be promoting America, I was cautious in my encouragement, but she was determined. Her first two paragraphs were words she had copied from resources, but her last paragraph was her own. She wrote, Liberty used to be just a statue, but now it is more. Now it is a right for all peoples everywhere. But, if we don’t use it well and value it, we can have our Liberty taken away. 

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