Coming Home

I stare out the window at the dark, cold Dunedin morning. “So similar to the time when I left Australia to come here, just one week ago,” I think to myself…

I was sitting in the departure lounge of Melbourne airport, looking out at the country which I had grown up in, but had never claimed as mine. “Next time the sun rises, I thought to myself, I will be looking at it from my country. Just then my flight was called. It would be the second flight of the day for me, as I had already flown there from Tasmania earlier that morning. I showed my boarding pass at the gate, and hurried down the tunnel towards the aircraft. These are the last steps I will take in Australia. When I get off here, I will be in New Zealand.”

After a long delay waiting in line to take off, we shifted out onto the runway. “This is it. The end of another chapter in my life.  I’m going back. Back to New Zealand; back to where I was born; back to the country which my ancestors landed in seven hundred years ago. I’ve waited a long time—more than fourteen years—but that will all be forgotten. There are just three hours left. Three hours until I will be back on the ground again, in my own country.” Australia sank below, as the plane thundered into the air.

As we screamed along through the upper atmosphere in rarefied air of minus fifty degrees, I watched the ground crawl slowly along below us. The shore drifted by, and water replaced the land. I thought of the others left behind, waiting for the house to sell. Three of us were in New Zealand, three in Australia, and the other in the middle, halfway across the Tasman Sea. Those in Australia would come when the house sold, but in the meantime, they had the upkeep of the property to deal with. Most of that would fall on my younger brother, and I almost felt guilty about leaving him all the work that I had been doing. That couldn’t be prevented, though.

The three hour journey felt like six. The clouds drifted past slowly below my window. Slowly we passed them, and I could see down again to the sea far below, a slightly ruffled blue sheet. I looked ahead, and there was New Zealand. I stared. I had not seen this country for more than fourteen years. We were approaching the northern end of the South Island. I watched it slowly approach, and as we flew over it, I saw Nelson, and then Picton. We swung in low over the Cook Strait, and landed in Wellington.

I hurried to get off the plane. I was home in New Zealand at last.  On my immigration slip, for the question about how long I had been away from New Zealand, I was as exact as I could be. For fourteen years, three months, and sixteen days, I had been out of this country. I knew I didn’t have to be that accurate, but I did it because I could. I looked out the window at the green hills beside the airport. “Fourteen years, three months, sixteen days, and I’m home. It’s a long time, but it doesn’t matter now. I’m back in my own country again.” At that moment, nothing else mattered to me. I forgot about the others in Tasmania; forgot about my having to catch another flight that evening to get to Dunedin; forgot about everything except that I was finally back in New Zealand.