Our Forever Family: Uncle Junior (Pataka)

We were sad last Wednesday to get a phone call from Aunty Tan to say that Uncle Junior had passed away earlier on in the day. Sad that Koro had died, but also happy for him to be free from the cares and limitations he experienced here on earth. When I told Ella, she remembered staying at Koro's house and told me all about how he had sore legs so he liked to watch movies in his chair. Faith was sad Koro wouldn't be around anymore but told us about how he'll come alive again in the resurrection.

So with that news we knew that we had a big trip ahead, one we were excited for because of the family time, but anxious about because of the long drive with all 4 of the kids (especially Dallin who we haven't ventured out of Auckland with yet!). She got a baptism by fire so to speak of long distance travel....5 hours is big for us but it turned out to actually be a fraction of what Uncle Junior's children had done coming from Mt Isa, Port Headland and Kannanura (somewhere up by Darwin). They'd had helicopter trips, drives and international flights and more drives to get here).

Anyways, this is a blow by blow account of how it went down.

Faith, Ella and Seth were out on Friday so I had a day with just Dallin to get organised (thank goodness) and Daddy Joe said he'd be home at 3:30pm so we could pack and hit the road as soon as we picked up the kindy kids. Wonderful plan.

We were on the road at 5pm, expected to stop 2 or 3 times to feed Dallin and get there around 10pm. If only it were that simple. Only about 30 kms from home, around Ellerslie my truck started shaking, sounding like a tractor, just the same as it did a couple of weeks ago when I took it to get the wheels balanced and thought I'd fixed the problem. Obviously not! My amateur mechanic jacked it up in a carpark in Otara and said the wheel up by the driver's side was really hot and none of the others were. He diagnosed it as the break rubbing on the wheel, probably ruining the breaks and way too unsafe to travel all that way in. So off we went to the Otara McDs while we figured out a plan.

At this point I rang AA to reinstate my membership which had lapsed 3 years previously. $20 per year for the 3 years I hadn't paid and the new 12 month membership fee. I confirmed with the call taker that I could make a callout right then and there and she lodged the booking. An hour later the mechanic turned up and basically told us we were probably right and it's not something he could fix in the dark on the side of the road. The car would have to be towed home and we were stranded. No worries, we've got AA Plus, that'll take care of the tow truck and maybe even a rental car I thought (I'd just seen that a few minutes earlier on their website). But no, it couldn't be that straightforward. Not when we had children that had been eating and playing at McDs for nearly 2 hours already, a poopy nappy toddler and screaming baby. AA said I wasn't an AA Plus member and they weren't going to do anything for us.

I started doing my Kiwi battler routine on the phone with the AA as the towtruck turned up (booked by the mechanic) and told us it would be $350 to get the car home. I started ranting on the phone, while juggling Dallin on my hip and trying to keep the kids in the playground so they didn't run out to Joe in the carpark. I ended up pretty much screaming 'what does reinstate mean? What was my membership when it lapsed? Why can I not do a callout within 24 hours when I was told I could do it right away, since I'm not a new member, but reinstating a 14 year long membership?' My goodness, me and that man went around in circles for about 15 mintues and then just as I was asking about the complaints process my phone ran out of battery!!!! Don't worry, I'll pursue it this week, I'm Kelvin's daughter afterall!

What should we do? We looked at eachother and didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Then we said 'let's just go'. That meant tow the car back to west auckland (a lady had rung from AA and said she'd make sure that payment was sorted thank goodness!), put all of our stuff into a taxi van and head for the airport where the AA had booked us a family wagon (but not paid for it). After a $40 taxi ride through South Auckland, we picked up our car (a Kia Carnival which I fell in love with for the oodles of space it had). Instead of leaving Auckland at 5 like we'd hoped, we ended up driving away from the airport at 9:15pm!!!!

Travelling with a nursing baby meant stopping in Huntly and Taupo which was pretty good considering Dallin's never been in a carseat longer than about 15 minutes before. We arrived at almost 2am and tried to creep into the marae in the dark un-noticed. Fail!!! There were kids huddled over in bed with dim lights shining, good old ipads and iphones. The girls and Seth joined in with a bit of playing before we managed to get them asleep close to 3am...we all slept on 2 mattresses with 2 duvets over us....freezing!

Seth did 2 big 'alarm clock' cries during our sleep, which was all over by 6:30am. Uncle Junior's children had arrived from Australia at midnight and driven straight down so they came in at the crack of dawn to see their Dad. We all managed to roll out of bed and over to the kai hall for breakfast, then I minded the kids while Daddy Joe and some of the other guys went up the road to the Urupa to dig the grave.

Dad conducted the service which was held in the marae around Uncle Junior. It was really nice to find out a bit more about him and hear from one of his son's and a close childhood friend. After that it was straight up to the Urupa for the burial. I had to watch my husband jump into the 6ft hole before the coffin got lowered in which wasn't something I ever want to see. He just needed to flatten out the dirt and it could only be done from inside the hole! A couple more people spoke, we sang and song and then Daddy Joe dedicated the grave.

Once we got back to the marae it was time for a big banquet.....Joe was in heaven with poaka boil up :)
Because we were supposed to have the rental car back at the airport at 8:45pm we thought we better leave by 1pm so we wouldn't be rushed. As is always the case, that turned into 5:15pm and we got back to the airport just after 10pm amidst lots of tears of exhaustion.

Gosh it was a trip to remember for so many reasons. Despite the meltdowns and car troubles, we're both so glad we pushed ahead with it to be their for Uncle Junior and to be with everyone for the day.

Typical morning lounge scene at our place

Waiting for the AA

Swapping everything to the taxivan in the middle of the Otara Markets carpark

The towtruck driver wasn't impressed with having to hang around while we transferred everything

Our friendly taxi driver when he dropped us off at the car rental carpark

We all had terribly red faces for the drive home. I think it's cause we'd been so cold all day that we blasted the heater for the whole drive home

We stopped in Tokoroa for me to feed bubby and the kids went into the Warehouse with Daddy Joe to buy a drink. Cracked me up that Faith went in wearing jammies, jeans and shiny black church shoes....no worries......Gosh I love that about my big girl!