The Journey Home Before Another Moko Arrives

There is a grief that comes from losing something you never had.

It is difficult to explain to those who grew up surrounded by their stories, their language, their whenua and their people. How do you mourn something that was absent before you were old enough to know it existed?

For much of my life, I have carried a longing I could never quite name.

A pull.

A knowing.

A call towards something just beyond my reach.

As Māori, we speak of tūrangawaewae, the place(s) where we have the right to belong and feel a deep sense of identity and empowerment

Yet for many of us, the brutal reality of colonisation meant that those places became distant, fragmented, forgotten, or inaccessible. Families were moved. Whakapapa was misplaced. Language was silenced. Survival meant much was lost. 

Each generation did what it needed to do.

The effects of this remain

They live inside us.

For me, they show up as uncertainty when someone asks where I am from.

They show up as hesitation before speaking pepeha.

They show up as guilt when I do not know enough.

They show up as fear when I seek to reconnect.

Because what if I get it wrong?

What if the written whakapapa I have is wrong?

What if I arrive on whenua believing it is mine, only to discover I have misunderstood the stories?

What if I am not known?

What if I am standing in a place where I do not belong?

These are not small fears.

They sit heavily within many who have been separated from their whakapapa.

Yet beneath those fears sits another truth.

The pull never leaves.

No matter how busy life becomes.

No matter how much business needs attention, bills need paying, children need raising or responsibilities need carrying.

The pull remains.

For me, it has taken many years to understand that reconnecting is not about becoming more Māori.

I always have been.

It is about becoming more myself.

This Matariki I am preparing to travel home to Ōpōtiki 

To Te Whakatōhea me Te Ūpokorehe 

To a place my feet have never walked.

To hear the dialect of my people spoken around me.

To stand where my ancestors also stood.

To feel the stones of our awa beneath my feet.

To hear the tide crash upon shores my tinana has never touched, yet my wairua somehow knows.

And if I am honest, I am afraid.

Not because I do not want to go.

But because every previous attempt has ended before it began.

Life intervened.

Responsibilities called.

The journey was postponed.

Part of me wonders if this journey will somehow slip away too.

But another part knows it cannot.

Because there is something larger at stake now.

I am no longer making this journey only for myself.

I am making it for my mokopuna.

Luna is already six years old.

Another moko is preparing to draw breath within mere months.

The reality of that lands differently in my heart.

The sadness I carry about what I did not receive as a child has become something else entirely.

Responsibility.

Not responsibility to have every answer.

Not responsibility to know every story perfectly.

Not responsibility to arrive fully healed.

But responsibility to ensure the separation ends with me.

To ensure the next generation does not inherit the same distance.

To ensure they know their stories are worth seeking.

To ensure they know where they come from.

To ensure they know they belong.

I have come to understand that being an ancestor is not something that begins after death.

It begins now.

With the choices we make.

The courage we gather.

The questions we are willing to ask.

The pathways we are willing to walk.

Even when we are afraid.

Especially when we are afraid.

Perhaps this journey is not about finding certainty.

Perhaps it is about finding enough courage to take the next step.

To trust that the whenua will know me, even when I do not yet know myself fully.

To trust my whakapapa will find me because 

It is a living relationship.

A remembering.

A returning.

It is an ongoing conversation that continues when we drew breathe.

So this Matariki, I am speaking gently to myself.

Be brave, dear one.

Allow the pathway to open.

Allow the answers to come.

Trust that what is meant for you will reveal itself in its own time.

For the next steps are not possible without this one.

And somewhere ahead, another mokopuna waits for the world to welcome them.

When they arrive, I want them to be gifted  more than my love.

I want them to be gifted a pathway home.