What’s the point?

It’s never too late to get on the waka.

Do I have Covid? Well my test is negative but I’m sick as a dog. And my husband is positive and I definitely kissed him on the mouth (gross) before he tested positive. So I’m just assuming I am. I’ll keep testing but anyway…I only tell you this so you are gentle with me given what comes next is a foggy brained thing…

My son heard about the Toitū Te Tiriti hikoi across the motu before they happened. He said “I know we can’t go, but can you take a photo of me in front of my Tino Rangatiratanga flag for me?” He wanted to be part of it, from his home, his kāinga.

His friends aged nine to eleven all talk to each other about what’s happening in their world and around the world. They ask us and their parents about the government, about policy, about protection of the whenua, about the world. They know about Palestine and Te Tiriti. They even know about smoke-free legislation being repealed.

And today, I realised that he, and his friends knew about something else. Something that took me a long time to understand.

They know they need to hold on to hope.

I listened to him FaceTiming his friends who have all been diligent in calling him after school to make sure he’s ok. He is isolating and they know he’s medically fragile. They start calling from 3.05pm. “Are you OK Eddie? Are you still negative?”

They tell him about their day and today I listened as they talked about the protests. Their excited voices interrupted each other.

“I heard it on the radio!”

“I saw it on the ad for the news!”

“My mum let me see photos on Instagram!”

“It was so cool!”

“Yeah mean as!”

They then talked about how they’ll “be at the next one”.

They agreed there would “definitely” be more hikoi because “it will take a while for everyone to join in”.

Then they talked about other protests they’d been to. How we arrived early to one and thought nobody would come “but then it was suddenly like so many people”.

Everyone will join in. They believe this. And it takes time, but change is coming. They believe that too.

Dame Whina Cooper and her mokopuna beginning the long walk to Wellington at the start of the Land March in 1975.

They have so much hope. And so much faith in the good in others. And this is something we tired, weary, broken adults must remember.

Hope is so important.

If we are lucky our lives are long. But I have lost people this year whose lives have been unfathomably short, and yet - their lives were so meaningful, the change they made to our world so incredible, that I simply cannot lose all hope.

Every life, every voice, is a powerful one. Every action we take, every tired and exhausted action, matters. Every time we cling to hope and act in hope - we are moving in the right direction.

We are showing the tamariki that there is reason to hope and they’re the reason. We will always show up for them.

Over the coming days you’ll see cynical people scoff. They’ll say there’s no power in protest. They’ll say that those of us who cling to hope have no staying power.

I believe they’re wrong.

Because every day more people stand up and join in. This march of hope for a better future for our tamariki, for all tamariki around the world, it is not a new one.

None of us need look far to find in our past the peaceful resistors, the conscientious objectors, the protestors, the proud, the healers, those who had so much hope for us. They are our our families, our ancestors, our tīpuna, our kith and kin and they planted seeds they knew they’d never see grow.

Now we do the same and we hold on to hope no matter what.

Because the children are watching. And they must know their hope is true and they’re right to hold onto it with all of their might.

So if you ever think: What’s the point? That’s it. It’s hope. For them and for us and for everyone who had hope before, after, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.