Two suicides this year in families we know. One woman, one man. Both wholly loved. Both intelligent, giving, internally combusting. Fully adult. Family devoted to their care, often on 24-hour watch. But they both found a way to end it and the power of their departure strikes like a stealth bomb into the hearts of the families. The written farewells told a story but not the whole story. These deliberate acts of farewell aren’t dismissible as an artifact of Covid. The debris of anguish and loss digs deep and the silence of loss is deeply hurting, but the world we scream to stop, to call attention to this grief, simply moves on.

Even those of us with the greatest faith ask: "Where are you God when we need you?"

Eight conversations with adults in recovery from life threatening drug addiction. The worst you can imagine. Only two choices left: This has to work or it is death — that’s how they describe it. Seven have extensive experience of our prisons. They speak of the different prisons and how they are treated and how they use violence to survive. In some prisons you can never relax, let your guard down. Others are run well, without a culture of fear.

Their thankfulness for this last chance to commit to structured recovery is palpable and inspiring. But it carries genuine fear that this journey will in fact end badly. I talk with each of them and encourage where I can. I am a rare stranger into their mix in an environment that allows them limited freedom. There are no phones. They must pass through four levels of recovery before they experience limited freedom. This can take many months — even more than a year.

As they tell their stories I am humbled by their self-knowledge and their courage. Surprised they had the durability to have this last chance. As they dig deep into the fortitude they are re-creating for themselves they are finding a resilience that they had lost. But the journey is fragile. Experience suggests some won’t make it.

Those managing their care have incredible capability and kindness, and for some, deep lived experience. They know what is at stake. They are clever and have other career choices but they choose to use their abundant expertise to work here. They are instruments of redemption.

Are we thankful for God’s work in this place, thankful because these eight people are still alive?

The week ends with a hui in Moerewa. When a Pākehā organisation first meets with Māori testing the pathway to improved relations there is inevitably a cultural frisson. Though the kaupapa (agenda) might be shared without whanaungatanga (establishing of relationships) there can be no meeting of the ways. So as we introduce ourselves in this context we share something of who we are. We sing. The room warms. There is an interplay that is characteristic of our citizenship that when paid the right attention opens the mutual keys to respect and confident dealings. A small and simple moment seals the deal.

We have come burdened by the knowledge that in our own facility in Tāmaki Makaurau we have empty beds. Meanwhile our hosts have been desperate for access to beds for their own whānau who have been diagnosed in need of our specialised kind of treatment. In the space of around two hours we were able to resolve for both parties a solution that neither of us had contemplated prior to this hui. We found their story so compelling that we talked about the possibility of a kaupapa-run service based in Moerewa.

This required no elaborate planning or stage-managed cross-cultural performance. To solve a difficult problem to mutual satisfaction, it only required an openness of heart to the wairua (spirit) that is present, a recognition by both parties of the expertise of the other and a deep respect for the tikanga (cultural rules) of the engagement related to that place.

So now I am left with this challenge. Is God here only for the good stuff that happens in our lives? And how do we make sense of feeling God’s absence in a dire situation? As I get older this challenge gets no easier.

Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 277 December 2022: 3