FOR WEEKS NOW, I HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO SLEEP. I LIE awake, imagining myself sitting at a boardroom table or on a stage in front of a microphone. I tell the gathered crowd, whose faces change depending on the scenario, who I am and how I am hurting and what needs to be done to put it right.
To get out of my head, I put my tirade down on paper. I rewrite it so it sounds even more convincing. I pretend it’s not part of my black box. I have a point to make at a family meeting, and I am worried I won’t be able to make it.
On the eve of the thirty-ninth anniversary of Erebus in November 2018, I fly to Auckland courtesy of Air New Zealand. As always, I sit on the left heading north (I go on the right heading south), ready to play that childhood game of hide-and-seek, waiting for Taranaki to show me his lofty peak through an ever-present halo of cloud. Today, though, I am out of luck.
I meet up with my cousin Olivia, who has just arrived from Perth. We check in to our accommodation. We go for a walk. We stumble upon St Matthew-in-the-City, and I remember something about an Erebus memorial window. We are ushered inside, towards a glass-covered display stand containing the Erebus remembrance book that was initiated by the then Air Pilots’ Guild of New Zealand (the Honourable Company of Air Pilots) at the time of the twentieth anniversary. There’s another book? This was the first time the names of the dead were gathered together in one public place.
The book is already lying open at my grandfather’s name. Christmas, Hugh Francis.
Olivia and I take a moment to flip through the contents, our fingers hovering over name after name, followed by pages of signatures from those who remember them. Sorrowful services were offered up at various anniversaries, and they are recorded here, too. We search for the signature of Eileen Christmas—but, alas, it is not there. Eileen never made it.
The following day, Olivia and I wake early. We dress and do our hair, we go for a walk, we force down our breakfast. We are going to the Erebus National Memorial family meeting. We are going to meet Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
My speech, rehashed and reprinted a dozen times, is in my handbag. My stomach roils—whether from nerves or excitement, who knows? Maybe it’s both. I glance at Olivia, but she’s distracted—on her phone, looking out the window, adjusting her dress. I check in with my body and my thoughts, heartburn rising up my throat the closer we get to our destination. What is that all about? Perhaps it’s because I’m scared. Maybe I won’t get to share my thoughts, to be heard and validated by someone who can do something about it. Or maybe I will be the only one to speak, standing in front of a room full of people too scared to move. Or maybe I’m just excited to see the men I have spent so much time talking with and writing about. Or maybe this will be a repeat of the Erebus exhibition at Archives New Zealand fourteen years ago, a day peppered with nervous eyerolling, panic attacks and a river of drunken tears.
Like that day, I will be in a room with others just like me, but this time I am better prepared. I am conscious of our connection, aware of everything that binds us. Only now, we get to say how we feel—this is the first time in history someone is listening. It’s only one o’clock, but I already feel like I need a stiff drink.
We walk towards the meeting hall and I spot the then acting chief executive of Manatū Taonga standing in the doorway, rocking backwards and forwards on sensible heels, avoiding eye contact as she waits for her VIPs. I linger in the foyer, observing her rhythmic sway.
Olivia and I take a ‘cousins’ photo against a black marble wall—I can’t believe we’re really here—then our deep, sighing breaths carry us up to the meeting.
I am instantly overwhelmed by the number of people here. The meeting won’t start for another half an hour, but already the room is bursting. Hi, I’m Sarah. My grandfather died on Erebus. In this room, my unique family story becomes universal. Every person here is affected by Erebus. They either loved someone who died on that mountain, or they worked their arses off to bring them home.
I have found my kin.
My heart flutters, my eyes dart, trying to locate a familiar face. I see Stuart Leighton and Greg Gilpin standing by a table of retired police officers who haven’t been in the same room for 39 years. I feel an impenetrable wall round them. I feel like an outsider. There is stilted laughter as they jostle each other with pats on the back and gregarious hand movements. One of them tells me later that he felt like an imposter, unworthy of being in a room filled with the bereaved. I laugh in disbelief. Maybe they were nervous, too.
Stuart introduces me to a young woman who never knew her father—he died on the flight when she was just a baby—but now she’s ready to learn more about where he was found and by whom. I tell her about my research, and her hands shake as she soaks it all in.
Olivia and I find a seat at the back of the room with Margaret Brooks (widow of TE901 Flight Engineer Gordon Brooks), David and Sarah Allan, and one or two others who keep to themselves. The room is humming with anticipation. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern arrives with Auckland mayor Phil Goff, and they make their way to the stage to be seated. We are greeted by the woman with the sensible shoes, then Rev Dr Richard Waugh opens with a prayer of remembrance. He speaks of our loss, of our connection and our hope.
God of all generations, maker of the universe and the DNA in every cell. We gather on this anniversary day from many different places, backgrounds and convictions, yet bound together by the common experience of the Mount Erebus air accident all those many years ago, yet for many here, like yesterday …
We come with mixed emotions, vivid memories, anxieties, questions and deep sorrow.
We remember Flight TE901. For the passengers and crew, great anticipation and delight in the flight; yet, for those left behind, so much sorrow and profound loss. The juxtaposition of emotions, of joy and tragedy colliding on the mountainside, is still exhausting for many.
We remember loved ones, and pay tribute to those involved in Operation Overdue, and all those who showed love and care to the families.
We are grateful for this opportunity to gather. While so many faces are new to us here, the depth of the common experience of loss and grief unites us all.
Our prayer for the Erebus National Memorial is for it to be a place of sacred remembering, and a means for healing and resolution.
This prayer touches me deeply. My pulse slows, my breathing deepens, my shoulders relax. It speaks to the anxieties and fears that have been following me around for weeks. With his soulful words, Richard has set our intention and invited the light in to this darkest of topics. The yearning to share my story with this crowd has been quelled and gently falls away.
Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei then sings a prayerful lament for those who have gone before, and I feel a wave of energy pass into the room and surround us. Our loved ones have come in from the cold, they have gathered here too, they are waiting. (Much later, an iwi representative tells us he felt our loved ones gather, that he often feels sleepy when the spirits of our ancestors draw near.) We then sit in silence for one minute, remembering them on this, the thirty-ninth anniversary of Erebus.
Jacinda Ardern stands to speak, and acknowledges our dead and the men who brought them home. She says she was ‘minus one’ in 1979—not born until the following year—but grew up knowing the Erebus story nonetheless. She explains that we have helped her to learn more about the accident and its impact through our letters, through sharing our stories both personally and in the media, and of course through the feedback we provided in the survey. ‘The weight of grief that you have carried extends through my entire lifetime, and I feel that weight,’ she says.
She confirms that the Erebus National Memorial will be situated at Dove-Myer Robinson Park, Taurarua Pā, also known as the Parnell Rose Gardens, overlooking Judges Bay in Auckland. I hope Justice Mahon would approve.
Ardern acknowledges we haven’t had a place to go, a place provided by the nation. Echoing our survey feedback, she says she wants to see the names of all those who died inscribed so that we can reach out and physically touch their names. I think back to the memorial wall I visited in the heart of Christchurch city, to the hands of grief stroking the angles and curves of the names inscribed there, to the falling tears and aching chests. Today, I allow myself to feel what this truly means. This will soon be us.
Although this meeting is primarily about the memorial, Ardern tells us she understands we may want to share our anger and frustrations about the aftermath, the trauma, the investigations and court cases and appeals. She encourages us to speak up and share our thoughts, that we should say those things. However, she explains that, as prime minister, she cannot comment specifically on court judgments, but that she would listen to what we have to say and think hard about it; she would carefully consider what we request of her, and would continue to communicate and engage with us going forward.
In that moment, I realise just how brave it is to face up to a room full of frustrated and angry citizens, people who openly admit they are still grieving, who have experienced great trauma and are holding you accountable. Not as brave, perhaps, as telling your children their father isn’t coming home; not as brave as spending eight nights on a crash site in the most gruesome of scenes; not as brave as facing a Royal Commission of Inquiry to defend the good name of your loved one. But still, bravery is relative, and we don’t often get the opportunity to be brave.
It will be several months until we are faced with yet another national tragedy, this time in our mosques in Christchurch. It will be several more months until the Prime Minister will once again call upon this bravery, this vulnerability. Then, she will need all the strength and compassion she can muster to stand in front of a room of grieving families and say, ‘I am so sorry for your loss.’ But for today, unaware of what the future holds, Jacinda Ardern has the weight of history on her shoulders. Today, she showed up and she is listening.
We are then informed about the relationships that exist between national and local government and iwi and local bodies, about the memorial design process and about the judging panel. This dance of formality and etiquette is cutting into our time—there’s now only an hour left for families and recovery staff to have their say. I can sense everyone’s patience wearing thin and the tension in the room is growing.
At last, a microphone is handed around and we hear from families and mountaineers and police officers who all share versions of the same story. Some have sensible questions. When will the memorial be ready? Why did you choose this date, or that place? How can the designers submit something meaningful if they don’t meet with us first?
Others provide opinions and statements of fact. The plane left from Auckland, not Christchurch … We’ve had to fight for everything we’ve ever got … This ruined my life, my family, my mother.
A woman speaks who, like me, lost a grandparent on Erebus. Like me, her first memory is of the Big Blue Men coming to the door. She was five.
A young man in the corner stands. His grandparents lost three sons that day. His voice starts to break as he speaks, and I wonder if one of those sons was his dad.
I blink and blink, as I feel the energy in the room start to change. I am trying to ward off the weight of emotion that presses at my chest, my ears filling with an all-too-familiar hum. When I look over at the young man’s table again, his siblings and cousins are now standing with him, a whole table of people standing up, saying ‘me too’. One by one, other people in the room stand. I lost someone too. Me too, I lost my mum. My dad died, too. The daughters of Captain Jim Collins stand. Me too. Here are dozens of boys and girls who now inhabit the bodies of adult men and women, and they are all standing, all united by the loss of their parents. Me too, I lost someone too. Over a hundred children standing in a room of remembrance. A room no longer held together by the rituals of etiquette and ceremony.
Everyone knew someone.
I catch Stuart’s eye. He raises his eyebrows—wow—and he’s right. No words could convey how commanding these children are. This simple collective action is more powerful than anything my words could convey. I wish my mother and her siblings were here to stand among them, to feel that shared bond, to see this room filled with people just like them. Until today, someone else has always spoken on their behalf. These are the forgotten children of Erebus.
As a mere grandchild, I feel like an imposter.
Momentum is building, people are growing restless, their confidence growing as they wave for the microphone again and again. Until today, someone else has always done the talking. As each person stands, before directing their questions to the prime minister, they first address the recovery team—each of them acknowledges these men for what they have done. These are the voices of Erebus.
The microphone is eventually handed to a man my age, whose face I cannot see but whose story sets him apart from many of the people in this room. He sobs as he tells us he was a little boy when he lost both of his parents, that he was orphaned by the crash, that he lost both the anchors in his family that day. He is still angry, understandably, and he asks why we have no place on the memorial design judging panel. He tells Manatū Taonga they have no right to protect us from the ‘weight of this responsibility’ when we have already lived through so much worse. He wants to participate, and now he has the ‘talking stick’ so we have to listen. Lastly, he asks the prime minister to remember what Erebus taught us: to always, always tell the truth.
The prime minister stands, and she addresses him directly. She answers his questions. She agrees there should be a place on the design panel for family representatives. She explains that what Erebus taught us is at the forefront of her mind, and will be held at the centre of this process.
Then she goes quiet. She looks him in the eye, meeting his vulnerability with her own. The pitch of her voice changes as she chokes back her own emotion. She tells him she is glad he ‘took the talking stick’ today, and as for what he has been through—she could not possibly imagine.
We sit there in silence, witnessing the power of communion.
This is sacred work.
The man’s older brother stands next, and explains to the room that his brother isn’t the kind of guy to ever say anything about anything. He is surprised, shocked even, but so proud of his brother’s bravery.
I don’t remember what happens next. Some of us stand and clap, some of us catch each other’s eye, some of us reach for a glass of water to wash away the grief that creeps up, up, but that we dare not utter. My face may be stained with tears, but my heart has been opened to the possibilities born of vulnerability and communion with others just like me. This is radical hope in action.
After the weeks of sleepless nights, of lying awake feeling anxious that I wouldn’t get to share my story, that my pain wouldn’t be validated, I have finally gained some perspective. I have reached the humble understanding that even my pain cannot compare to the loss of this family, to the loss of all these children.
I approach the man before we leave, and I thank him for his honesty and for the perspective he has given me. We hug. We both start to cry. He does not let me go.
Sharing grief stories helps to dissipate the pain, and this is fundamental to the grieving process. Grief must be witnessed to be healed, and telling our tale reinforces that our loss matters. The families and recovery staff have never before congregated in such numbers. We have never had a platform to connect and share and grieve. Gatherings like this are important—they allow you to be with others who have experienced loss, and they provide a forum for talking about what happened.
I think about Detective Inspector Mike Charles, who told me I was the first family member to ever contact him. I think about mountaineer Rex Hendry, who had never spoken about his ordeal to a family member before. I realise that, just like me, they had been living in a vacuum, separated from us, yet still living with the effects of Erebus. I have been in my own Erebus bubble but this has now changed. It is liberating and overwhelming, formidable yet humbling. It has changed me. It deserves a selfie.
Olivia and I walk round the corner to Galbraith’s Alehouse to toast Frank and Eileen. My friend Lizzie, another granddaughter of Erebus, joins us. As we turn to leave, we recognise another family sitting behind us who lost two family members: their dad and their mum’s brother. I have never met them before, but we connect instantly. We have no problem sharing experiences or exchanging thoughts and feelings. The older son tells me he has never bought a ticket on an Air New Zealand flight, ever. His sister tells me her dad was buried in early January, on the same day as her birthday. Their mum cries silently through her beautiful smile, as memories resurface of her husband and her brother, both gone forever. The cone of silence descends, and the rest of the pub’s patrons fade away. Something sacred is happening here, in this beer garden in Mount Eden. This moment is precious.
The following morning, Olivia and I visit the Parnell Rose Gardens at Taurarua Pā. We walk through the roses—‘Look, there’s Loving Memory!’—then head down towards the water of Judges Bay. As we pass under a korowai of pōhutukawa, Olivia finally opens up about the previous day. She tells me she found the collective energy very powerful, that it was a day she will never forget. Even though she grew up in Australia, she still learned a bit about Erebus and Frank through her dad’s sparse, painful stories. She admits she didn’t really understand the depth and breadth of Erebus—not really. She’d never heard stories like the ones she heard yesterday, never met people like those who were there, and it gave her a greater understanding of our family.
When it comes to Erebus, a bit of perspective can be a wonderful thing.
We stand on the grass, and then at the water’s edge. I suppress the urge to sink into the water, to surrender my body and be rocked by the gentle waves in the hope I might arise cleansed, hopeful, reborn. Instead, the two of us wade, we take photos for our family, and we agree that, given Frank’s love of roses and the ocean, this location is right. We will return here in a year for the ‘breaking of the earth’ ceremony, for the fortieth-anniversary commemorations. And we will return again for the unveiling of the memorial in May 2020, and again, and again.
Today feels like a victory.