I don't write much about myself or my family. The result I think of the attacks by the hate-siters distressed that their campaign against David Bain failed, and an innocent man walked free despite a full on hate-campaign. So distressed, that they needed to turn their fury upon those that had been vocal critics of the weak, and now discredited case, that keep Bain in prison for over a decade. In other words personalised an attack against whom ever they might be able to target, and unfortunately their families and friends. The book isn't closed on that yet, with some matters yet to be finalised in the Courts. It has made me consider why I have invested time in arguing against the absurdity that was the flawed case against David Bain - particularly because he is somebody I have never met.
Some of my critics say it is because that I am anti police having led a less than sheltered life, that however doesn't explain that on this blog and elsewhere I have saluted the work of several police, even Judges and argued the case for others that haven't appeared to getting a fair go. Of course surface analysis has always been the forte of the hate-siters, everything must be packaged and labelled as to whether a person is for or against them. A situation that reminds me of the motto(s) often expressed by gangs. In the fullness of time I may write more about the detail that has most often led me to the often involuntary desire to help out the 'little' guy or those not getting a fair go. In the meantime I'll let any readers make their own decisions as to my motivation and the reason I didn't 'walk away' into silence when everything including the kitchen sink was being thrown at myself and family by bitter people who deemed themselves to be 'right thinking' New Zealanders.
Which brings me to the point I wished to make about Mother's day, when as I say above, the sun shone bright. Yesterday I had the opportunity to meet an on line companion and her husband, preparing for that visit I took my youngest to the supermarket to do some shopping and buy flowers on the advice of the 6 year old. Just leaving home I remembered my own mother, someone of indomitable spirit and strength, who in the years I was separated from her, I would be often brought news by a Catholic Nun, Joan, who by some co-incidence crossed paths with me in what has often been described as the 'end of the road.'
As a primary aged child I would sing mocking songs in reply when seeing the boys from the Catholic school finding their way home, from one side of our fence where they might be picking fruit from the family's trees that overhung the pathway. Little did I know then that I would have serious feuds with some of those boys that resulted in a lot of blood shed lasting over many many years. The issue of course was never Catholicism or being a Protestant, that wasn't important to me or to them. We were just kids growing up sons of soldiers in a fairly tough area. Years later I would discover that I had Catholic roots myself, not that it would have ever deterred either party from the bitterness of 'tit for tat.' So driving to the supermarket past the old Catholic grave yard where those then boys once went to school, I could see the paint splashed on some of the graves, and wondered as I often have, why that paint hasn't affected the sensibilities of a nation, such as when, in equally destructive measure, Jewish graves are sometimes defaced, or that of Anzacs in Gallipoli.
That spirit of my mother that I mentioned earlier was such that while she never actively supported me in doing anything other than the right thing, she also never recoiled from that fact I would fight anybody for 2 bob, no matter the number or if they were a gang or not. A somewhat disordered and bizarre take on life I admit but attached to me for reasons still difficult to understand, other than perhaps by the phrase 'wont back down.' There is little power in that, little to celebrate in a grotesque accumulation of what makes a person fight no matter the odds and not matter the apparent stupidity, or misguided (ness) of the 'cause.' Yet when I was finally able to visit my mother myself (rather than benefiting from the news of her from dear Sister Joan) she had been in deep dementia for nearly a decade, blind, deaf (a deteriorating problem for most of her life) and unable to speak. Sister Joan and others had said, (and how could they know) that she was 'waiting for me.' So it was, visiting my mother with my soon to be wife and finding a gaunt skeletal figure that had replaced the happy and kind women of my childhood and youth. She had long been bed ridden, yet somehow she stirred, and with barely wet lips whispered to my intended 'look after my boy.'
I was married a few days later and of course my mother couldn't attend, it was short of the next Christmas that she died, my wife holding her hand and myself shrunk into the shadows of loss. All memories brought home by the Mother's day when the sun shone, when I would soon after meet a friend for the first time, wondering no little, as she may have herself, what it was that causes one to question the validity of claims as to what is 'right' and what are in fact 'right thinking New Zealanders.'
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