Black Ferns legend Ruby Tui on family
I’ve got a surprise for you, Dad said one day. I was 11 years-old. We were driving around in his van, and I just looked at him. OK . . . And he dropped a bombshell.
You’ve got a sister. She’s sixteen and she works at KFC. Do you want to go see her?
Oh my gosh! Yes!
An older sibling, just like I’d always wished for. I remembered that weird time when Dad made me go and knock on that woman’s door. It suddenly made sense.
We went to KFC and Dad sat down and he made me line up to be served. And there she was behind the counter. I was so excited and nervous and shy and I didn’t know if she knew who I was, and I didn’t know what to say. I said hi, and she and Dad must have been talking because she did seem to know who I was, and she said hi, too. I ordered whatever I ordered and pushed my money across. She was shy too, she didn’t know what to say either, but when my order came she brought it across to me herself, and she’d added a chocolate bar and a drink to the tray.
No one had ever given me free stuff before. I felt so cool.
We were just smiling at each other and not really saying anything, and Dad said to me, Do you want to hang out with her after she finishes work? Of course I was like, Oh yes please!
So later that day me and Dad waited for her outside KFC. Dad had a van at the time, so we all had to squash up together on the front seat — Dad, me in the middle and then my sister, Lesh, on the side. Squashed between my dad and my sister: it was the best feeling in the world. Adults had told me it was impossible to get an older sibling, but here she was. My older sister. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t say a word I was so nervous, but inside I was wearing the biggest smile. Then Dad said, Do you want to hang out with her without me? Of course!
So Lesh took me to Glassons and bought me a top — a white, fleecy top and a matching white belt. Matching! I felt so cool. I looked real funky.
Then we went and got our noses pierced together. Cool! But when I got back to Canvastown, Mum was so mad. I guess it reminded her of the time Dad got the cross shaved into my hair, and she made me take it out. Oh, I wanted my nose piercing. Me and my sister got it, matching. So at night I would secretly re-pierce it — so sore, but it was my connection to my sister.
That day with Lesh, it still stands as one of the best days of my whole life — like God had heard me and gifted me this new best friend. She was connecting with Dad for the first time, so suddenly she was like an addition to my life with Dad.
Of course, Dad’s an alcoholic, and she was young, so how we bonded was through drinking. I didn’t have the skills to say to her, I don’t need to do this. Honestly, I loved her so much, we could have just sat in a room doing nothing and I would have been happy. But I guess Dad and her were also trying to figure out their relationship, and so drinking was what we all ended up doing.
I started drinking hard out around age eleven. Grandad and his wife Sani helped me out sometimes when I got hungover, they would be rolling their eyes but they were real loving to me. They didn’t make me feel alone. They were like, Oh, her dad . . . They knew it would have been Dad giving me the alcohol. Dad being the black sheep saved me in a way because everyone kind of looked out for him extra and therefore me too.
They did try to love him. I heard from my aunty that when Grandma died she said to Grandad, You have to look after my son, Vaki. But Dad was always arguing with his family because he had been through so much, and I think that because he rejected his family’s love, I got that little bit of extra love from them — like I got his share too. I got away with heaps, and I really felt that.
Down in Canvastown I was a loser, bottom of the heap; but in Wellington I felt cool. I felt better-than — more grown-up than the other kids at my school. No one else was going out and drinking yet, getting stoned.
I needed an escape, and I needed to feel like I fitted in somewhere, and I found that by drinking with Dad and sorting drugs with Hailey and their friends.
I felt like I was Dad’s bro, his mate, and that’s how he always treated me. I didn’t understand that I was any different to him, that I was just a child. I didn’t see any difference between me and Lesh, even though she was five years older than me.
Later on, Lesh ended up living with Dad at Grandad’s house. She took over part of the basement, covered the walls in drawings and quotes and made it her own — she’s a real incredible artist.
I loved her being there. We hung out there in the basement and I’d just want to be with her all the time, whatever she was doing. Lesh, like me, wanted happy families, but it was never that simple with our dad.
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Even though things weren’t perfect when I was little, I love both my mum and my dad dearly. They are such different people, and for a little while I was a bit sour at them for various reasons. But then I grew up a bit, I worked on my empathy and now I am just so thankful to both of them.
Parenting is both the hardest job in the world and the most important, yet there is no training or qualifications required to do it. You are just trying your best each day to learn and do the best you can. And that’s what my parents did, the best they could with what they had. My mother didn’t have parents to lean on and my father went through an earth-shattering culture shock. I got their best, which is all I could ever ask for. I will forever be grateful for the little things my parents did when they could.
I love them both very much.
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To complete the picture of my siblings, fast-forward till I was 23, and Dad called me to tell me his girlfriend was pregnant. And not long after that, Nikki was born. She’s my baby sister, and she’s gorgeous, and she loves me and Lesh dearly, so whenever I have spare time I fly down to Wellington and spend a few days. She texts me, or calls me, and I always answer any questions she has and I make sure she knows who she is and who her sisters are, always.
I love all my siblings and even though there has been drama, there’s always been an unbreakable love. Technically they are all half-siblings but to me there’s no such thing. I am close with them all and treasure our relationships. And when I’m with my sisters and my brother, I’m not a Black Ferns Sevens player, I’m just their sister. Just Ruby.
Taken with permission from the number one bestseller Straight Up by Ruby Tui as told to Margie Thomson (Allen & Unwin, $36.99), available in bookstores nationwide.
The Black Ferns play Wales in the quarter-final of the rugby World Cup at the Northland Events Centre in Whangārei this Saturday, October 29, at 7:30pm.
