Nestled against the backdrop of an aqua blue lagoon, gleaming from the noon day sun, as clear blue radiant skies stream across the horizon and the summer breeze billows across the Islands, so many of us will be enjoy the coming together of families and friends, writes Thomas Tarurongo Wynne.

Cars and bikes fill the roads, with gentle nods of familiarity as people go by, some we have seen most days, and some we haven’t seen for ages, with long yells of hey! … as they flutter by.

It is our season, December is when we take the Islands back from keen and smiley travellers, as plane after plane of our families return home. It becomes again our place of meeting, our place of reflection and our place to fill that ‘souls cup’ up again, to the brim, as only home can do. Many of us like myself who currently work offshore dream about the return home permanently, and rekindle that deep connection and longlining, not to be a visitor or traveller, not to be passing through, not to be counting down the days, but to be once again living, breathing and contributing back to the enua, community, government and people that have given us so much.

It is this great sense of gratitude that overcomes any of the minor frustrations of life in the middle of the great Moana that is our Moana Nui a Kiva. This sense of gratitude that enables us to be away for a season, but always with our heart facing home, and gathering skills, relationships, capacity, and perspective while we are away.

It is a cost many of us are willing to pay. We know our time on this earth is temporary, a number only God knows. We count the cost, we pay the price, for it is our country and our people who stand to benefit from the sacrifices we make. Like generations before us, who lived beyond the reef, we live for a season, but our hope is to leave a legacy for those who come after.

And as much as we plan and plant the seeds for tomorrow, we hear also the words of Jesus who said, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself, each day has enough trouble of its own.” This week, we as many other families, will remember those we have lost, those who have recently passed and those whom we will memorialise. Sadly, our Aunty Tekau Ariki Taru (nee Vaike) passed away yesterday in Wellington, and we think of our cousins John, Martha, Arasena, Jane and all Aunty Kau’s ina and inaina, as our Mama Kau joins our Papa John Taru in eternity, waiting on the resurrection to come.

We will tomorrow, as many other families will do, memorialise the life of a loved one, as we intern the ashes of our Aunty and Mama Mata Partridge (nee Teavae) at her homestead in Ruaau, Arorangi. Family have flown in from Aotearoa to join with her daughter Eleanor and granddaughter Arasena and family and friends, thinking also of her daughter Pandora, son Christie and mokopuna that could not make it. Mama Mata was a staunch teacher of culture and stalwart of Te Reo Māori Cook Islands. Her legacy as a teacher both here in the Cook Islands and in Aotearoa lives on in all the students she taught and encouraged to higher learning. I am fortunate to be one of her many students and to have taken on her love for education.

Being home at this time is bittersweet for so many of us, as I think also of my good friend Alfred Ngaro whose mum Mama Toko Kirianu Ngaro passed away on Christmas day. We are reminded as this year comes to an end of the fragility of life, like a thin paper veil, that in an instant, those we love pass eternally through to other side. So, this year’s new years resolution is simple, let us resolve to do these three things: to love more, to deepen our relationships with each other and make time to connect and serve – busy, just doesn’t cut it anymore.