Long goodbye nears the end
David White’s daughter, Helen Meads, was killed by her husband in 2009, but the bereft father hasn’t yet allowed himself to grieve.
Instead, White and wife Pam have been helping to raise their grandchildren. White has also been campaigning for an end to family violence, speaking to groups across the country, including prison inmates.
‘‘Pam and I never gave ourselves time to grieve because we couldn’t afford the time to do it,’’ White said in Nelson, the final South Island destination of his Harm Ends – Futures Begin tour of New Zealand. ‘‘We really just live day to day.’’
With his tour of 71 electorates in 71 days booked until the end of May, White has his movements planned for the next few weeks, but ‘‘that’s unbelievably rare’’.
Life had been a day-to-day existence for the Whites since Helen Meads was shot and killed by husband Greg at their Matamata property. Greg Meads was later convicted of her murder and jailed.
The couple intended to bid farewell to Helen at the end of the tour from Spirits Bay in Northland. Considered a sacred place in Ma¯ ori culture, it is said to be the location where the spirits of the dead leave this world.
‘‘So we’re going up to Spirits Bay to say goodbye to Helen and let it go then, and hopefully, once we have done that and I stop doing all the stuff that I’ve been doing because I’ve lost the resilience to do it – it’s worn me down – we will come home and start life again.’’
White, 74, created his Harm Ends – Futures Begin tour to prompt communities to pick up the challenge of working to prevent family violence.
He said he aimed to bring together police and MPs in each area to start a group ‘‘and then for the police to step back and the MP to be at the end of the phone and you let the community do the work and own it, then change will happen’’.
‘‘Family violence is a learned behaviour, you’re not born with it . . . and because you learn it, you can unlearn it, and that’s what I’m trying to do – untie all the knots.’’
White, who has visited Greg Meads in jail, said he believed his daughter’s killer had changed.
‘‘You can feel it in him. There’s none of that atmosphere of threat or antagonism or whatever. He is remorseful about what he’s created by what he did at the time. He absolutely would not solve it that way again.’’
However, while White had let go of the anger, he did not forgive Meads – and had told him so. ‘‘He said: ‘Well I can’t expect to forgive myself either’.’’
White said a question from an inmate less than a year ago jolted him into preparing for Meads’ eventual release.
‘‘He’d listened to everything I’d said, and said, ‘I heard you talk about how we need to prepare for our families, I’ve heard to say how we need to learn to be fathers, we need to care for our children, love them and show it to them and hug them and how we need to work with our families for when we come out. So what are you doing for Greg Meads?’.’’
White was floored. ‘‘When I went home, I realised that I thought I was doing what I could for the kids, but I was doing absolutely nothing that was going to release that huge wave of trauma of him coming out.
‘‘If we don’t start working with perpetrators to stop the cycle of intergenerational family harm, you’re going to be doing nothing, because we’re just allowing it to continue.’’
The Labour Party in Nelson hosted White’s visit. Labour’s 2017 Nelson candidate, Rachel Boyack, said more than 100 people at three gatherings, including social work students, social sector agency workers, politicians and members of the public, heard his message.
‘‘Family violence isa learned behaviour, you’re not born with it . . . and because you learn it, you can unlearn it, and that’s what I’m trying to do – untie all the knots.’’ David White