In 1971 there was a time I was dying. In a yacht on Lake Tarawera. And my brother saved me. I was a young girl in my yacht with my brother. We canned out and I, like my brother, fell into the dark and cold gloom of Lake Tarawera.
We were going to die. Cold water. Deep, cold, dark and endless water.
My legs got tangled in the sheeting – the ropes that control the sails – and I sank below the yacht into the depths of the lake. I was wearing a parka and it filled up with water. I was drowning. I was going to die.
I can still remember the swirl of the water and the cold grave that I was confronting. All these years later. My vision was gone; the water so dark and dense; my movement was becoming limited due to the cold and I was immersed in a deep darkness that I have never seen before or since.
I was dying.
Suddenly, I felt a tug at my feet.
Someone was down in the cold water and trying, in the darkness, to get me free of the ropes. Someone held my hand and emerged out of the water. “Don’t worry. We are going to be OK.”
It was my brother.
My parka was weighing me down. My feet were entwined. He was supporting me in the upturned cabin of the yacht.
The lake water was cold and it was dark and had limited visibility – yet he dove down and repeatedly tried to release my feet from the rope.
We were both cold and, even today, all these years later, I can remember with clarity, that we were both fighting for our lives.
Only my brother did not have to.
He was free.
He could have swum away and said that I was lost. Drowned. But he did not. He kept diving down and coming up. He worked his arse off to save me. And he did.
He freed my legs from the ropes and held my hand and swam with me to safety on the top of the upturned yacht.
I cannot help but think that we are drowning right now. Seriously.
Our feet are caught in the sheeting and we are being pulled under.
Where is our big brother? Isn’t our government supposed to be our big brother?
Not OUR BIG BROTHER.
1984 is usurping 1971 and, for myself, I prefer MY Big Brother to Jacinda Ardern’s BIG BROTHER government.
Thanks brother, you saved my life, and God bless you.
Brothers look after you. They do not spy on you, betray you or leave you to drown.
Is our government a brother? Or is it the people who have entwined our feet and caused us to sink into the depths of the black void of socialism? In other words, not our brother. Our keeper.
Do we have a brother who is leaving us to drown? For me, I want to rise to the surface, see the daylight and breathe freely with the knowledge that we have no ropes, no ties and no suffocation.
Most importantly, the right to actually get in the yacht and bloody sail.
We may capsize, but let us, please, sail and voyage without a restricted navigation map, and let us, please, sail on to a future that is a wondrous unknown and a glorious future to the realm of Freedom.
I don’t want to drown. I want to breathe, and Jacinda Ardern is putting my feet in ropes and chains.
When we feel like we are drowning, we ARE drowning. When we need someone to rescue us, who can we count on? Simon? No. I fear not. He is the brother that would never dive into the water and save his sister because it might be politically incorrect. He is the brother that would never chill his soul for fear that global warming might get the better of him. He is the man that is too frightened to dive in and save his loved one, his country, and do as my brother did and set me free.
Simon, if you cannot dive in to the murky waters, please stand aside and let someone else do it.
Because we are bloody drowning.
