Street - Lost and Found

First published in 2021

Copyright Toni Street, 2021
Images authors private collection unless otherwise credited on page

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Allen & Unwin
Level 2, 10 College Hill
Auckland 1011, New Zealand
Phone: (64 9) 377 380

Email:
Web: www.allenandunwin.co.nz

83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065, Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

A catalogue record for this book is available
from the National Library of New Zealand

ISBN 978 1 98854 773 2
eISBN 978 1 76106 302 2

Design by Megan van Staden
Cover photograph by Monty Adams
Hair and makeup by Lisa Matson
Styling by Lulu Wilcox

To Mum and Dad,
for showing us what true courage is.

Stephens had an accident, Mum says over the phone.

Is he okay? How bad is it? I ask.

Its bad, Tones. Her voice breaks. Hes died.

It is 8 a.m. on 7 January 2002 and my life splits into two. My brothers death becomes a seismic marker in my life theres the time before he died, and the time after. Twenty years on and I still view my life in those two distinct parts.

I am eighteen. I have just finished seventh form (year 13) and Im meant to be heading off to university in four weeks time. This cant be happening. Stephen cant be dead, hes only fourteen; he has his whole life to live. And my parents, my poor parents. They have already lost two children they wont survive this. I have to get home.

Friends scramble around me and somehow Im on a plane heading from Christchurch to New Plymouth. Im supposed to be playing cricket today for the Central Districts womens team. I am absolutely not meant to be flying home to my family in tatters.

The flight is a blur. My cousin Brad is sitting next to me, but I cant talk because I feel as if Im suffocating. I dont know how he got there or why hes on this flight. I can barely breathe; the world is closing in on me.

The plane touches down. Everyone else is standing up, waiting to disembark. I have never felt so desperate to get off a plane in my life, but at the same time Ive never been so terrified of what Im about to face.

My family is inside the terminal waiting for me. But what even is my family without Stephen? My adorable, shy, beautiful little brother who wouldnt hurt a fly. This cannot be true.

Suddenly Im up on my feet and I have to get off.

Let me off the plane! I want to scream, but I say nothing. The queue is moving now and Im walking across the tarmac. The doors slide open and, oh my god, there they are. Mum, Dad and my little sister Kirsty, who is only eleven. Theyre all holding onto each other in a strange sort of huddle and they look different. Shellshocked. I run to them and they open their arms to me. Were all sobbing now, even Dad.

Im here, Im here, Im here, I say. We stay in that group hug for the longest time. People are probably staring at us, but I dont care. My brother has died. Nothing else matters.

It will be okay, I promise, knowing it wont. How could it ever be okay when my parents have just lost a third child and Kirsty and I have lost our only brother?

One of Mums biggest hopes for her children was that they would never know the grief she has lived with for most of her life. But now that Stephen has died, that hope is over for Kirsty and me. And the grief is all-consuming. Now I know why Mum describes grief as a burden, because theres definitely a weight to the feeling and you cant just shake it off.

Even now, twenty years on, I feel it. Its like an invisible cloak draped around my shoulders. Some days its heavier than others, but its always there. It touches everything I do and its everywhere I go. How long are you supposed to be sad? I still dont know the answer, but I have learnt you can grieve and live at the same time. It took me a long time to accept that.

I have spent most of my adult life trying to make sense of what my parents went through and how they survived. Because Stephen was not their first loss. This book is not my story, its ours. Writing about it is my way of honouring my parents and their experience. But this is not a misery memoir; my family are some of the most joyful people you could meet. And thats the thing: when youve experienced loss like ours, lifes good stuff is amplified. Love is deeper and colours are brighter.

But man, I miss my little brother. Hed love my kids. The girls, Juliette and Mackenzie, and his miracle nephew, Lachie, who was born with so many of his Uncle Stephens traits beautiful olive skin, dark brown eyes and the kindest nature. Sometimes Mum does a double-take when she sees him. Gosh, youre like your Uncle Stephen, shell murmur as she tucks Lachie into bed. Absolutely perfect.

But I guess a book should start at the beginning, so lets go back to the day I was born, at Taranaki Base Hospital on 8 September 1983. My parents, Wendy and Geoff Street, were babies themselves: Mum 23 and Dad 27, newly married and at the start of what they were sure would be a happy life of farming and family.

They were childhood sweethearts who had met through their own parents, who were friends and golfing companions. After they got married they took over the Street family dairy farm. It wasnt huge 180 acres with 160 cows but it was big enough to keep Dad busy, and there was nowhere else they wanted to raise their future children.

The newlyweds had their loved ones close, in every sense of the word, because Dads parents, Nana Joyce and Grandad Bert, lived just across the paddock, and Mums parents, Nana June and Grandad Bob, lived five minutes away in the other direction.

My family were, and still are, what youd call classic salt-of-the-earth people whose lives revolved around sport, the weather, their livestock and their close-knit community of neighbours, family and friends. Eggs, casseroles and baking were shared around, and kids roamed freely between houses. Rolling green hills dotted with pockets of native bush stretched as far as the eye could see. And it was also only a fifteen-minute drive to town, so we felt like we had the best of both worlds.

It was the early 1980s and Mums biggest dream was to fill the house with kids and to be there for them, no matter what. Shes a born homemaker, my mum, and she and Dad were set on giving us the best childhood they possibly could.

As far as I was concerned there was no better place on earth to grow up. We had the hills to explore, animals to play with, creeks to go eeling in, and a home that was always open to friends and cousins, who roamed as freely as we did. When I think back to our childhood on the farm, I appreciate it even more now that I realise how lucky we were to have all that space and freedom.

Even though we grew up in the shadow of loss and sadness, us kids were largely sheltered from it. We were completely wrapped up in our own carefree, happy little lives.

Something a lot of people dont know about me is that I am a twin. I have no real memories of my twin brother, Lance, though, because he died when we were just eighteen months old.

Before getting pregnant with us, Mum knew pretty much nothing about babies. She was totally nave about what she was getting herself into. But Lance and I were born safe and well at 38 weeks, and Dad said it felt like winning Lotto a boy and a girl in one hit.

Lance was born first, then I came along nine minutes later. I weighed 5.5 pounds (2.5 kilograms), slightly less than Lance, who was 6 pounds 15 ounces (3.1 kilograms). Back then, new mums stayed in the maternity hospital for up to a week after giving birth, and Mum was kept in even longer because Lance had mild jaundice. Even though I was the smaller twin, I was stronger and healthier from the get-go. I was noisier and more demanding, too, Mum said, always desperate to be involved in everything.