Aroha Gilling: ““Brain injuries are invisible, so it was very difficult to explain the mumbled words, or the incorrect word for simple items and activities. Today, people still laugh at me when I get a word wrong.” (Photo supplied)

The stories we tell ourselves secure us in the world, writes Aroha Gilling.

The fragility of life and loved ones became apparent to me at a very young age when, as a 12-year-old, I watched my beloved mother being loaded onto an ambulance gurney and taken to the hospital. She suffered from ongoing ill-health and would pass away when I was in my mid-20s.

Capturing my memories with her became a lifelong project that still plays out in my writing today, which is why ideas about remembering are often on my mind. How we store memories, how they alter or distort over time, and how we share them are important to me. Memories help me to make sense of my world.

I have a box of cherished photographs that have travelled the country with me as I move from house to house. Sometimes I choose one or two to display, and other times I find a sense of peace in just knowing they’re with me. A friend lost everything in a house fire, and when I asked him what loss had been the most grievous besides the house, he said: “My sports photos.” He was an outstanding cricketer and rugby player in his youth.

I live close to a river that rises rapidly, and a few years ago,  a nearby bank slipped in heavy rain, causing mud and water to rush through several properties in my neighbourhood, including my own garage. When the rain is pelting down late at night and the roar of the river is increasing, I do think about what I’d take if I had to evacuate, and the answer is always my antique teddy bear and my photos.

I’ve always been fascinated by the Victorian era concept of commonplace books. These little personal collections were a means of recording everyday thoughts, keepsakes, and quotes. I used to keep one, and then when I discovered tattoos in my mid-teens, much of what would have gone into my commonplace book now finds its home on my right arm. I do admire people with well-planned and curated tattooing, but I’m drawn to the ones with the chaotic jumbles in different sizes and styles, as I suspect they reflect a rich, complex life.

I also have a collection of painting journals where I accumulate favourite memories. Sometimes it’s scenery or creatures, and other times an interesting item catches my eye. I come back to these journals often when I’m missing home on the East Coast, grieving the death of my old dog, or recalling details from a recent field trip. They provide me with a sense of peace, reassurance and ongoing connection.

Today, it’s so easy to capture a memory with a cellphone, but I do wonder if I’m actually missing out on making richer memories when I’m stuck behind my phone. Now I leave my phone alone or take one picture and then put it away.

This fascination with memory and remembering really came to a head, literally and figuratively, in 2012.

In the middle of the night, I woke up feeling like my head was exploding with pain. Luckily, I managed to push redial on my phone, and a friend picked up. Her brother, a 111 operator, happened to be with her. He took over, and help arrived soon after. Initially, it was diagnosed as a bad migraine, but a persistent emergency nurse persuaded the doctor to do an MRI, and a bleed was clear on the imaging.

I spent time in hospital and was eventually released to stay with a friend after convincing the specialist that, because I’d read Room by Emma Donoghue overnight and could answer questions about the text, I was ready to be discharged.

But I was conning both of us. Despite acquiring the dubious talent of speed reading as a side effect of the aneurysm, I had blank spaces in my memory. I will never know if a longer hospital stay or different treatment would have helped with the morass of confusion inside my head that eventually settled into moments of incomprehension.

Three years after the bleed, I arrived at breakfast in a pair of trousers I didn’t wear often. My flatmate complimented me on them. I replied that I didn’t like them very much because they were too short. She told me to roll down the cuffs. I thought: “What’s a cuff?”

It took me a long time to understand what was going on in my head, and even today, some 13 years later, it still happens when someone asks me a simple question: I know I should know the answer, but there is only incomprehension. It’s different to forgetting or struggling to recall. I do that too, but they feel distinct from blank spacing.

Memory and recall are vitally important because they affect my sense of who I am and where I fit in this complex world, and how I navigate situations. When there are pieces missing, I struggle to find my footing, and I begin to doubt myself.

For almost two decades, I made my living as a tertiary educator, so my brain and everything it stored were critical to my teaching. Brain injuries are invisible, so it was very difficult to explain the mumbled words or the incorrect words for simple items and activities. Or the complete absence of words and just a blank stare. Today, people still laugh at me when I get a word wrong. Now I don’t even bother explaining why — I just move on and ignore them.

But one of the privileges of my work today is that I often get to sit alongside kuia and kaumātua, hapū and whānau as they recover and recollect old narratives.

Recently, I listened to an iwi group as they used modern mapping technology to “fly” around their rohe. As memories emerged, a story began and then someone else built on it. Suddenly, they would whizz off into another story before circling back with an additional layer added to the first narrative.

In the meantime, people were checking for details on their phones, and this became part of the storyline too, or triggered new narratives. Over the day, layer after layer of the history of their rohe came to life as they captured and recorded this priceless information.

My favourite story of the day came out of a particularly unstructured session where one location on the map generated so much discussion that multiple stories were going all at once.

Over the wall of sound, one quiet voice said: “And then there’s the lone hinau tree.” Like elastic snapping back, everyone turned immediately to this captivating image of the one ancient hinau tree still standing in place today.

Suddenly, old stories about the tree’s many uses were recalled, including the bark’s role as a dye fixative. Just like that, it became clear why the old tree still stood adjacent to the remains of Māori textile dyeing pits. The collective memories filled in the gaps and made sense of today’s landscape and the remains of ancestral workings.

The experience reminded me that it’s also in collective memories that we see ourselves across space and time and in context. If I couldn’t tell myself my own stories, if I couldn’t listen to others’ histories, then I would exist purely in the here and now.

Of course, the stories I tell myself about myself are flawed, missing unflattering or frightening details, or enhancing certain elements. But they are mine. They remind me of my good qualities, my strengths and my weaknesses. They are my blueprint for skills and problem-solving, and they link me to treasured moments and experiences. They connect me to my loved ones wherever they are.

Recently, I visited a marae where one of the kuia seemed very interested in me and two others in our group. As she spoke to us, I realised she wasn’t seeing us as we were, but somehow, through us, she saw her friends and loved ones from her youth. While it was an unsettling experience for some of our group, I considered it a privilege to give her the gift of seeing her lost loved ones once more.

My challenges with memory over the years have underscored the need to hold on to the recollections that are clear, and to take time to revisit and refresh them.

Some of my most cherished memories of my mother include her listening, at the same time, to the news on TV and the National programme on radio, her insistence on the importance of many regular cups of tea throughout the day, her belief in a good tomato sandwich — and her small figure in her homemade apron, waving me off from the front door.

Aroha Gilling (Te Whānau a Apanui) is an adviser to government departments on Te Tiriti o Waitangi and mātauranga Māori. She has a Master of Indigenous Studies from the University of Otago and a background in adult education and social work. She lives in Nelson.

E-Tangata, 2025