Nadine Anne Hura, who never considered herself an artist, reflects on what art and making has taught her. I couldn’t clean or cook or wash the clothes, but I could sew. That’s a lie, I’m a terrible sewer, but I left work early to fossick around in the $1 bin of the fabric warehouse, searching … Read more
Sam Brooks muses on being without family for the festive season, and creating new traditions from the ashes of the old. When you think of the word orphan, two images come to mind. One of them is an ash-faced boy who wants more gruel, and the other is of a redhead girl with implausibly clean … Read more
For many whānau, Christmas can be a difficult time of the year, accentuating the absence of those who have passed away. Nadine Anne Hura reflects on love, loss and regret on this first Christmas without her brother. Jimmy Barnes says that life’s too short for burning bridges, but what I want to know is whether … Read more
Nadine Anne Hura’s brother was different, like Māui. Equal parts curious, reckless, determined and brave, he couldn’t leave things alone. He needed to know. I found my brother in a crowd of 60,000 people under the stars. It was 1993 and U2 was on tour at Mt Smart Stadium. If I said I remembered the … Read more
It’s a podcast almost four years in the making on a topic ‘shrouded in silence’. Emily Writes speaks to Susie Ferguson about The Unthinkable. Susie Ferguson is talking about something I desperately don’t want to talk about. Baby death or stillbirth is a heart-breaking subject that many of us instinctively turn away from. Ferguson didn’t … Read more
Amy McDaid works as a neonatal intensive care nurse at Starship. Her first novel is about loss that erodes and the kindness that – eventually – comes after. The accumulation of daily disappointments is a tragedy in itself; a series of pleasures consistently denied, joy deferred and kindness deflected. All the things we hoped for … Read more
Megan Dunn takes a long look at the art in the Auckland Hospital collection and finds out that yes, there is art, even in intensive care – but the price of seeing it is everything. I got the pamphlet in the mail back in January. It says after someone close to you dies it is … Read more
A country in lockdown adds another level of loneliness to death, writes Amberleigh Jack. But her mother’s final days in a world of chaos were not without moments of joy. “I need to tell you that your mother is very unwell.” I’m alone in my mum’s house – almost two hours from my home and … Read more
Grief is an unwanted guest at the best of times, none more so than when you can’t actually have guests. Sam Brooks writes about how he’s processing grief in a time of lockdown. Lockdown is perhaps the first time in modern history where a lot of us have too much time on our hands. Some … Read more
From managing the expectations of friends and whānau to making sure there’s enough PPE, Jihee Junn talks to an Auckland-based funeral director about what their job has been like under Covid-19. More than 400 people are said to have died during New Zealand’s first week under level four lockdown. Only one had a direct connection … Read more
The loss of a loved one can be difficult in the best of times. But it’s even more painful when the planes are grounded. Late on Saturday night, three days into New Zealand’s level four lockdown, Harish got a call from his sister in India telling him that his father had died. In bed and … Read more
Damien Wilkins’ novel Aspiring is out today. It sprang from this very Salinger-y short story, which we remembered reading in Annual and are delighted to publish again here. First, a brief intro from Wilkins: I don’t write for children. Kate de Goldi made me do it. She very kindly asked if I’d write something for … Read more
Dealing with grief is hard. Comfort carbs make it a little bit easier, says Amanda Thompson. As near perfect a country as Aotearoa undoubtedly is, I don’t think as a whole we’re so great with grief. Grief for a lover lost, a terrible accident suffered, a rugby game unwon, a beloved pet buried. The tragedy … Read more
Sometimes death comes for the old, and sometimes for the young. And sadly, like life, it rarely makes much sense when it does come. It was 8.45 am and my phone was vibrating. Ella’s name flashed on the screen. The call was probably a mistake, an accidental pocket-dial, I thought. We usually text each other … Read more
Yep, there’s a book of the TV show and yep, it’s just as wonderful. In this extract, funeral director Francis Tipene explains why you don’t need to splurge on send-offs, how he keeps his act together – and why he cringes when people talk about ‘closure’. Funerals don’t need to be expensive. People can choose … Read more
At a recent wedding I was asked how Christchurch is doing now. It turns out that question is more difficult to answer than I thought. On a warm autumn night in Melbourne, a nice man wearing a nice suit has two questions. The first is easy: Where do you live? “Christchurch,” I tell him. As … Read more
The leadership shown by tangata whenua at every national disaster and tragedy should be recognised and honoured by all of us, writes Catherine Delahunty. I do appreciate having a prime minister who is capable of expressing decent, human emotions when tragedies descend on us. It’s a sadly low bar that she rises above. We live … Read more
Sam Brooks reviews Gris, the stunning game from Devolver Digital that gamifies and makes beautiful that one universal process: grief. A girl lies on a massive stone hand. Her world is full of colour – radiant reds, bruised blues, yearning yellows. She opens her mouth and sings in a high fluttery soprano, and seem to float … Read more
Loved Linda Burgess’s essays for The Spinoff? Now she’s written a whole book of ’em. And it is, predictably, terrific. With love, Linda Burgess writes simply in her dedication. With love, and god there is so much of it here, in these essays, this “memoir of sorts”, you’ll get to the end and feel like … Read more
This Father’s Day, broadcaster Nadine Higgins reckons with her complex relationship with her estranged Dad who passed away last year. When someone you love dies, people console you for your loss. But in truth, we lost each other some time ago. Long before that Sunday when I woke inexplicably at 3.30 am, anxious but unaware … Read more
Vana Manasiadis wrote a collection of poetry in the wake of her mother’s death. In this essay, ahead of her appearance at the Going West festival, she argues that as a nation Aotearoa needs to learn to make space for mourning. When Mum died in Athens, I cried loudly and publicly and was held up … Read more
Sam Brooks, lifelong gamer, lost himself on a virtual battlefield in the days after his mother’s death. Here, he reviews a book by a kindred spirit: Lost in A Good Game: Why We Play Video Games and What They Can Do For Us, by psychologist Pete Etchells. The person who got me into video games … Read more
Mark Longley on his new podcast Death and what inspired him to tackle one of our last taboos: what we do when someone dies. This story was first published on Newshub. I was at a social function about three months after my daughter Emily died and I was talking to a guy I knew, but not well. … Read more
One year ago, God of War was unleashed on the world, selling millions of copies and winning countless awards. Sam Brooks finally catches up with the game. Incredibly mild spoilers for God of War follow. On paper, everything about 2018’s God of War was everything that bores me in art. It was about dads. It had a kid in it. … Read more
For many reporters covering the Christchurch terror attacks, detachment and objectivity gave way to human emotion, and journalist turned academic Dr Rukhsana Aslam argues that’s perfectly fine. To be objective, neutral and dispassionate while doing a story is the long-practised norm of journalism. It is the principle we journalists live by. We are trained to … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Man appears in court charged with murder of British backpacker Grace Millane, little progress made on child poverty, and National responds to UN pact critics. A 26 year old man has appeared in court, charged with the murder of 22 year old British backpacker Grace Millane. The … Read more
The Monday Extract: A harrowing personal essay by Christchurch poet Jeffrey Paparoa Holman from his new memoir. Even before I took LSD with a poet friend I was becoming unhinged. It was as if I just didn’t care; with a few cans of beer on board to dull the rational sites in the brain, dropping a … Read more
The new drama from Facebook Watch (yes, that’s a thing) is the small screen’s most delicately rendered and thoughtful tackling of grief since Six Feet Under, writes Sam Brooks. Grief is like a snowflake made of shit – every experience is unique and unpleasant in its own way. When someone dies, the grief radiates outwards … Read more
Content note: this essay may be distressing for some readers. Years later I read that fighting with your partner while pregnant can cause the foetus life-threatening stress. I remember Fiji, where Robert doesn’t notice that he’s used a $US100 note to buy something. American notes all look the same and he thinks it’s a single … Read more