‘We don’t want to kill your grannies’
Hostility towards returning Kiwis has disturbed a woman planning to come back after several years of caring for parents overseas.
The attitude toward Kiwi returnees is a worry for Melissa Groen who, with husband Ian Runciman, has spent the past three years in the Netherlands looking after her late mother and supporting her father.
‘‘We are not wanting to kill your grannies and are very aware of our duty to protect others as a result of coming home,’’ Groen told Stuff.
‘‘Some of us actually are in this position of being separated from our home because we love our family and came to look after ailing and/or dying parents.’’
Groen immigrated to New Zealand as a child and is a permanent resident.
Her parents moved back to the Netherlands and, on one of Groen’s regular visits, her mum’s ill health prompted a snap decision.
Groen and her husband – a New Zealand citizen – stayed to care for her, and support her father through the period.
‘‘It was never the intention to stay long-term. You do it to help out, and we were in a lucky position in that we could do that, because our children were a little bit older.’’
The plan was always to return to their Hamilton home, which they now plan to do in July.
Groen first booked plane tickets for late March, Runciman for April, and they put their Netherlands home on the market.
Then Covid hit, house buyers fell through, and travel got complicated.
Flights were either cancelled or stopped in countries they couldn’t transit through, Groen said.
‘‘It’s very easy for New Zealand to say ‘come home’.
‘‘And it’s great if you’re having a two-week holiday in Bali,’’
Groen said.
There’s another side to the story, she said: people consumed by efforts to get home.
Her two children – who she hasn’t seen in a year and a half – are in New Zealand, as are Runciman’s children, grandchildren, and elderly father.
She’s in a relatively good situation, but it has still been an emotional roller-coaster.
‘‘Will they stop us from coming into the country because they can’t hold us in quarantine? That is a real concern for people like us. We’ve still got a few weeks to wait.’’
And if Kiwis have to pay thousands for quarantine, they should get some say in where and how they quarantine, she said.
Hostility towards returnees can feel like a personal attack if you let it, she said, and isn’t the caring Kiwi attitude she boasts about.
‘‘I know I have a Dutch last name but I’m really proud of being a Kiwi.’’ ’’
New Zealand did the hard yards and gave up freedoms but the rest of the world has too, she said. Kiwis seem to be worried about losing their perfect mark for coronavirus.
It’s great that New Zealand did well and minimised deaths, she said, but it’s not about winning.
‘‘We’re in this together – it’s a global issue.’’
‘‘We are very aware of our duty to protect others as a result of coming home.’’
Melissa Groen tells Stuff