People & Places
Gardners' World
Julie Gardner, who moved to NZ in 1999 with husband Adrian, talks us through some of her emigration turning points
Our paths briefly crossed in 1987, and then in 1992 Adrian travelled to New Zealand. We re- established our friendship in 1993. Adrian was often relaying stories about the fantastic country that he had found so enchanting and spectacular. He never had anything negative to say about the country, the scenery the culture or the people. He was homesick for the place - a feeling that he had never experienced when leaving England, his place of birth. It was as if Aotearoa was his real country, the one where he felt he belonged.
We talked about visiting New Zealand and wondered how we would fit a trip into our busy lives. A big part of our life was the respite care that I gave to a single mother. We cared for her youngest child, a baby who had cerebral palsy. This enabled the mother to devote more quality time to her other two preschool children.
When Adrian expressed an interest in moving to New Zealand I couldn't figure out how this could be achieved with the attachment we both had for the baby. The mother was wanting us to be her daughter's legal guardians but she wasn't wanting us to adopt her and move to the other side of the world.
Without any warning the baby died. We were all devastated. We supported the family whilst working through the sadness.
In 1997 I made my first trip to New Zealand with Adrian. I had never doubted how wonderful the country would be but I wanted to see it before committing myself to emigrating. On our return to England we obtained the necessary paperwork and started the long process of form filling. I had sent my CV to all the IHC offices (Family and Children service) within New Zealand. I was pleasantly surprised by their quick replies and encouragement. My qualifications met their requirements but, more importantly, it was the experience that I had with special needs that impressed them and they were keen to offer employment once our residency had been finalised. We didn't have any health issues so we sailed through all the health checks and x-rays. All the documents were in order and reading all the forms that had been sent to us it appeared that we met the criteria. After many weeks of collating the paperwork, the application was finally posted.
During this hectic time there was a mixture of feelings from friends and family members. These included offers of support such as practical things like storing some of our belongings that we just didn't want to part with. Some people were constantly giving words of encouragement. This was all very much appreciated. Then there were people who just found it too difficult to talk about the move so they didn't and when we approached the subject they would quickly change it to something different. Initially, I found this very upsetting. I didn't understand why they were reacting in this way. Adrian had never hidden the fact that he wanted to live in New Zealand - it had been known for years. It was his dream. I can only assume that some people hadn't taken these statements seriously. I was distracted from pursuing the awkward situation when our precious paperwork was returned. We were informed that our qualifications had not been evaluated and our application for residency could not be processed until they had been checked.
I made enquires and learnt that there was a ridiculously long wait for the qualifications to be evaluated. If we went ahead and arranged for the qualifications to be evaluated then all the health checks, x-rays and police checks would be out of date and we would have to do them all again. More costs would be incurred.
We also had a buyer for our property and didn't want to jeopardise the sale. We were in a dilemma. The 'dream' appeared to be drifting further away.
One of the doubts that people had voiced was, ' Are you sure you want to move all that way - what will you do if it doesn't work out going to New Zealand?'
We hadn't make the choice just with the flip of a coin. Our reply was always the same: If we didn't try then we will never know if it's the right move but we certainly didn't want to stay and, years later, wonder what it would have been like if we had gone. To quote Ernest Hemingway: "The greatest mistake in life is to be continually fearing you will make one."
During the last few years we had grieved the loss of many friends and family members. At times the sadness was overwhelming but there seems very few options but to 'carry on' in the hope that 'time would heal'. In some cases the healing process feels timeless. This is particularly true when Adrian's business partner and closest friend died.
This healthy, dear man full of enthusiasm and life suffered an aneurism of the heart. Adrian found him slumped over the steering wheel of the tractor. Nothing could have saved him. He was 44 and still had so many unfilled plans he wanted to do. The shock consumed us. It felt as if our lives had shattered and not for the first time we were totally devastated.
With or without New Zealand residency, we were off to the Land of the Long White Cloud. 'You have to live your dream now', we concluded.
Look out for more of Julie and Adrian's turning points next month.
Back to Emigrate magazine home