The Babysitter

We’re sitting in the sun having a cuppa, a couple of chipped teapots and brightly patterned cups scattered on the table. The scent of freshly baked gingerbread hangs in the air, while I pick at a few of the sweet crumbs on my plate.

“You’re much more than just a babysitter,” he says, and I smile. It’s been 40 years since I babysat the children, who now have children of their own, young adults who travel the globe, off on their own adventures. In that time, I have married, I have had children, I have divorced, I have loved, and I have cried.

Christmas cards and the occasional visit didn’t breach the gap, but now we live in the same suburb, a sleepy coastal village, just a ferry’s ride across the water to the capital. I’ve been here just five months, trying to find my feet, as paid work evaporates and illness floats around me.

Yet all the while, my old friends are here, good people who know the value of connection, of whanaungatanga:

"Come for dinner," she says, and it is delicious, a Saturday night treat. But when I jump in my car for the short drive home, a strange noise tells me I’m not going anywhere. The day after, we push the car to the side, awaiting a verdict, me worried about insurance, a tow truck, the cost. The next morning, he accompanies me to the local garage, a museum of old batteries and rusty cogs, where the proprietor promises to do the job that morning, onsite, where the car has conked out. It is quick, it is cheap, it is a relief.

My tap breaks, and he is there, wrench in hand. My garden needs plants, and she gifts seedlings and cuttings, and all the accoutrements a green-fingered woman can muster.



A tree is felled in my overgrown garden, and I can return the favour, with thick chunks of blood red rata to feed their fire next winter. I am their tech support, their social media advisor, their photographer and videographer. We exchange books, we trade ideas at meal times, we share the challenges and victories of our days.

It is simple, it is primal. In the words of Miles Franklin, having “someone to tell it to is the fundamental needs of human beings.”

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