Up in the bush at Waiotemarama, beyond a waterfall, there is a path that leads through stands of trees. The trees are upright and sturdy. Their branches are high and their columns carry the scalloped impressions left by sections of fallen- away bark. You know this is an ancient place. It is tapu. On the trunk of one of the tallest trees a stream of opaque gum is making its way toward the ground. The gum is white. The tree is bleeding.
A long time ago on a windy, rainy night, the nurse and I drove up a metal road. A road sign reminded us to be careful of wandering stock, but if there were any, they were hard to see. The house we went to was at the end of the road. We parked the car on the side of a river. Across the river — on the other side of a rickety swing bridge — were kerosene lanterns, held up so that we could make our way across to the old lady and her family. We had been to the house the day before while the woman was still alive. We went so that I could say she had been seen while she lived. The only thing she needed from me was to be sure that she would have a death certificate. She had not seen a doctor for many years, but she knew someone would have to give a reason for her death. It was important to her that in life and in death, her body remained whole, not cut up by a knife.
The house was lit up by candles. Faces appeared out of the darkness. There were lots of faces, belonging to the ones who had been waiting with her. Her room was full of white linen. It was candlelit. This was the first time I had ever helped to lay out a body. My stethoscope did not hear her heart beat. The nurse and I washed her and packed cotton wool into all of her body’s openings except for her mouth.
It rained all the way home. There were animals on the road this time, but I do not remember whether they were cows or horses.
Another time, I used to visit an old man who lived in one of Hokianga’s more faraway areas on the north side of the harbour. He was a small stringy man. He was easy to talk to, although it was more about listening to him. He was a carver who lived by his upbringing and beliefs in the same traditions that his grandparents had lived by. He had cancer. This particular cancer was not a fast- moving invader but one that crept slowly through him and took his strength little by little.
The man decided that he would stay at home and allow time to do its work, however long that would turn out to be. He also wanted to prepare himself for the day when his spirit would go ahead. He carved his own coffin. On almost every visit, he would let himself down into it and show how he would appear to his mourners. The coffin was exactly as long as he was. He explained how it would be lined with fern fronds and that more greenery would cover his body.
This man of wood and trees was returning himself to a place where he could nurture in death what had sustained him in life.
Somewhere else, in a woodworking class for people on unemployment benefits, a woman chose to make a casket. She intended to use it herself, although there was no reason to think her death was going to be any time soon. She stored the coffin in a cupboard in her house with a pragmatism that did not give a nod to others, to the kind of people who think it is unlucky to have sympathy cards in drawers for the days when they will be needed, the people who think that by this action they are inviting death to pay those drawers a visit.
Pragmatism is readiness for what comes next. It does not deny dearness or tenderness of feeling, but it prepares a framework around taonga or grief that will be able to hold this dearness and this tenderness in ways that are whole and unbroken.
A doctor once looked after a man who was close to his end. He was an important man in his community and he was traditional in his beliefs. There were other people in the room who waited with him.
One of them approached the doctor and asked him, “How long will he last?” The doctor was surprised. He could not be sure — maybe he would continue to breathe for another day or two more. The man asked again, “How long will he last, doctor?” Again, the doctor gave a hesitant reply. He thought to himself that he was not a clairvoyant, there was no way he could answer directly. After the third question, he realised that what was being asked was not the day or time of death but how long after his death would the man’s body last before it started to decay. Would the man need to be embalmed or would he remain intact for the three days of his tangi?
Another old man remembers his childhood. In those days, there were few roads and it took time to get to tangi if the marae was at some other place. It could take two or three days. There was no embalming. By the fourth or fifth day of the tangi, greeting the tūpāpaku was not always something to look forward to if you were only five or six years old. This was the case even if the one who lay there had been mindful as they prepared to die and had gone without food for three days beforehand. The man remembers his reluctance. Since people have been sent to the undertaker to be preserved, it has become easier.
A woman was in her workshop getting things done. Three hundred kilometres away her sister was sick with an illness that would end her life. A fantail flew into the woman’s room. It circled once, twice, three times. She put down her needle and thread and said, “It’s all right, I’m coming now.” The little bird flew away out through the open door. The woman packed up her car and went to her sister. She stayed for the three months it took until her sister died.
Although there were other birds present when Māui entered Hine- nui- te-pō, and although other birds laughed at the sight of the man who sought immortality by entering the body of a woman as he reversed the first passage from inner to outer, it is Tīrairaka who stirs up fear. If a fantail enters the house, some say there will be a death.
Once we visited a man who was dying of renal failure in Auckland Hospital. He was in Auckland because he was too sick to be cared for locally. This man had been a stockman and a farmhand before he became unwell. He was a good friend to my partner and had been knowledgeable and adept, sharing what he knew about stock and farming. The room where he lay now was unusual in its layout. Usually there is a light switch and alarm button above the head of the bed. His bed had been shifted and placed so that from where he was lying, he could see the door. If he could get to his feet, he would have been able to leave the room directly. Someone told me later that this made it easy for his spirit to find its way out and begin the long journey to Rēinga, to Te Rerenga Wairua. I remember the indefinable strangeness and my incomprehension of what it was I was looking at.
I remember one man who always slept in his chair. He kept his tokotoko close at hand to ward off unwelcome visitors. Sometimes he would cry out and shake the tokotoko. His sleep was always disturbed by these unfriendly beings. His face was worn out with the exhaustion of so many nights’ lost rest.
The tumour was not the thing that cost him peace of mind or body.
Another man heard footsteps on the verandah outside. The footsteps were heavy — whoever was out there was wearing boots. Sometimes there was the smell of pipe smoke. It was night and no one else could hear the steps or smell the tobacco. The man remembered the smell and the sounds from days gone by. He was not afraid.
When someone is dying, the space they are in changes. The air is thin. The room becomes a place between worlds. Although the walls may be solid, there are doors that were not there before.
Often the room is full of people — people you can see and people you are blind to. Whether seen or unseen, the atmosphere is warm. The one who is separating, who is between two worlds, is safe.
The moment of birth and the moment of death are universal moments. The first breath and the last breath. Every first breath and every last breath has a story. And no one story is the same as any other.
There was a man who lived in the middle of a paddock. He was a solitary man, always irritable and unwelcoming unless you were a cat or a sheep. Cats and sheep found their way into his heart and, though he had very little, the little he had was spent on the animals. If there were no strays nearby, he would go out to find them. He was past eighty years old, and when he talked about his death he would say that he did not want any fuss. He did not want money spent on a coffin, no matter how simple. He wanted to be burnt and for his ashes to lie on the grass where they would help new grass to grow and feed his sheep. I never thought of him as a holy man, I never thought of him as a St Francis, but maybe I should have.
Another man had prostate cancer. By the time it was found, it had breached its boundaries and spread to other places in his body. He was a young man. He was not ready to give in. He wanted to take the time that it took to make sense of his life. There were children and mokopuna who needed to know who their father was, who their grandfather was, what was important to him, what he believed in.
Some people get into the boat that will carry them away and do not question their atua, do not resist the pull. Others stand on the shore. The tide keeps coming in but they carve out a place to stand and push back. Maybe they are lucky and the first tide is not a king tide. They look at it and they do not look behind. In the end, the waves reach up around their feet. The time taken for the one in the boat and the one on the shore might be the same. The one in the boat trusts his people to be with him, the ones who have gone before and the ones who are yet to be. The one on the shore is afraid that no one will remember. He almost forgets who he is and where he came from.
In the Bible story of Eden, Adam and Eve eat the apple and lose their innocence. A person who understands that they will die of the disease that has been named has lost their innocence.
The kauri tree is bleeding. Its strength is leaving, soon its branches will be grey and empty.
Taken with kind permission from the outstanding new bestselling memoir A Place To Stand by Dr Clare Ward (Allen & Unwin, $37.99), available in bookstores nationwide. A review is forthcoming by Dr Peter Davis, who taught the author first year sociology in the Behavioural Science programme at Auckland Medical School.
