Aroha Gilling as a baby in the arms of Wynsome Gilling, one of two Pākehā sisters who adopted her when she was three weeks old. They provided love and comfort and a deep sense of home. (Photo supplied)

Home is a shifting idea for Aroha Gilling, who was adopted as a baby by Pākehā siblings and only discovered her whakapapa later in life.

I’ve been thinking about the idea of home lately. What is home? Where is home? Who is home? Do I even have a home?

I was adopted in the late 1960s by two sisters. My first memories of home are anchored firmly in the memories of these shy women. They parented me from when I was three weeks old until they passed away within a few months of each other when I was in my mid-20s.

My wee family lived in a red brick house perched precariously atop the hill in St Clair, Dunedin. There was a tree-lined drive, and those trees were perfect for climbing. There was a hedge on one side that I used to crawl through to visit my friends and the neighbours who had the best swing.

In summer, there was a para pool on the lawn and hand-me-down trikes to ride down the perilously steep drive. At Christmas, there were plenty of fresh peas to steal in the large vegetable garden, and in winter, the former chook house made a great spot to play out of the rain. This was the first place I could confidently call home.

The things that made that house home were the two sisters who cared for me. Ada was the eldest. She was diminutive and fierce. She had a fondness for great big Ford Falcons, even though she needed a booster cushion to see over the steering wheel. She’d been a country GP and then transitioned to psychiatric hospital work. Wynsome was her junior by about five years, a hospital pharmacist and church organist. They were a great team and always presented a united front to the world. It can’t have been easy for them to parent me, a wild little Māori girl, through the ‘70s and ‘80s. My mothers also adopted another baby girl about 10 months after me, and we grew up together as sisters.

There was also my grandma Alice, Ada and Wynsome’s mum. She was my best friend until she died just a few days before my fifth birthday. I wore her sun frock day after day, mourning her loss, until I was finally persuaded to take it off.

Aroha with her grandma Alice. (Photo supplied)

Home was characterised first and foremost by these women. But also the various cats and dogs that came and went — and the certainty that dinner would be on the table every night, and that there would always be someone to play badminton with and to tuck me into my comfy bed and read me a story.

Home as a young child meant love and comfort and the radio always playing the National programme in the background.

We stayed in that home with the magnificent sea views until my sister and I finished primary school.

The memories and sensations of that time still permeate my dreams, reduced to little snapshots and fleeting feelings. The excitement of hiding under the stairs, the fear of my first night on my own in the sunroom, the dull repetition of music practice in the sitting room and the hilarity of making lurid mixes of fizzy and ice cream at the kitchen table.

When I was 13, we moved to a semi-detached flat in South Dunedin. It was situated among an aging population, which suited my shy mothers, who found some good friends among our neighbours.

My grandma was no longer alive, Ada had retired from work as a doctor because of severe health problems, and I hit my teen years. I was awkward, pudgy, seething with hormones and self-doubt. Through all the turmoil, home was the constant — the radio and TV burbling in the background, Toby the dog snuffling around, and my bedroom with a door I could close. After a long day at school wrestling with art history, girl dramas, self-respect and my rapidly changing body, home was a secure place to come back to at the end of the day.

I did my first year of university from home, but in my second year, my mothers bought me a quilt and a washing basket. They ushered me out into the world to make my own way in the alcohol-sodden maelstrom of student flatting. The flat was, well, a flat. It had peeling wallpaper, a fireplace that didn’t work, graffiti on my bedroom wall, and a bath under the stairs. Friends came and went, and yes, we did burn a couch, and the fire engine came to my 21st. It wasn’t home, though.

Home was still the flat in South Dunedin and my two mothers. Home was a hot meal on a Sunday, leftovers to take back to the flat, and a comfy, clean couch with a dog to cuddle as the mothers chatted in the kitchen or pottered in the courtyard. Home was the place I brought a string of oddball mates to, and they were always welcomed and fed. Home was just there — until suddenly it wasn’t.

Newborn Aroha with one of her mothers, Dr Ada Gilling. (Photo supplied)

My mothers died in 1996. Ada passed away after years of ill health, and Wynsome died suddenly on Good Friday while rinsing out her stockings. I believe life was just too difficult without her lifelong companion by her side. My sister and I sold the flat, split up the furniture, and went our separate ways. I tried desperately to make new homes of my own, but they were only cleaner versions of my student flat, transient and easily abandoned. There was no one to come home to anymore, and I was devastated.

That same year, I met my birth mother, five sisters and wider whānau Māori for the first time. At the time, I was working in a role that gave me access to some details about my adoption. I used those clues to do a little investigating, and I wrote a card and delivered it to the shop near the area where I guessed my birth mum lived. Just a few hours after I left the card at the shop, she called me.

The idea of home took on a whole new, weighty meaning. This place that my new sisters described so casually as home wasn’t home to me. I had no whenua buried in the whenua, no photographs pinned to the wall of me under the pūriri tree, and I didn’t know how to find the best spots to swim or fish.

This new not-home became a place defined by my absence, the stories I didn’t have a role in, and the unshared experiences. I didn’t know how to act in this new not-home, where to sit, when to laugh, or how to be. I was more absent than present, even when I was there, as I tried to fade from view.

Then I had the opportunity to create a home of my own and build a future. I bought a former church. A simple building with a small garden and high fences. Finally, I felt safe again.

My friends came and went, some staying for a night, others for a year, and I loved being able to offer them that, somewhere to come home to, even temporarily. The church became our central meeting place before a night out and the place where we re-grouped the day after. It was more than a place to shelter physically, it was a place to shelter emotionally, too. We shared meals at the big table, and laughter and tears. I thought it was my forever home, and I was happy.

Aroha Gilling, in front of a painting reflecting on the impact of colonisation in Aotearoa New Zealand by her former teaching partner and artist Kate Walker. (Photo supplied)

Then my employer at the time made some cuts, and I lost a large portion of my role and income. I couldn’t pay my mortgage and ended up selling the church. For years afterwards, I couldn’t even drive down the street it’s on.

The church is a pub now. I still find it impossible to go there for a beer with friends. It’s a terrifying reminder of how swiftly home, security and peace can disappear.

After the church, I went through a series of flats, some better than others, but none of them were home. At one point, I had nowhere to live, and I was relying on friends for a bed, tenting or sleeping in my car. Desperate for a warm shower, I shelled out for a night in a dingy hotel. During this period, I made some horrible choices out of fear. I felt so untethered and unsafe that I could have floated away, and no one would have noticed.

Throughout this time, I kept going to see my whānau on the East Coast.

Slowly, I built up a repository of simple experiences to replace the unsettling and confusing ones from my early days of getting to know them. These little details are what connect me to a sense of home nowadays. New memories are made from our whānau dinners, sea swims, long, sleepy afternoons with the door ajar listening to the waves, fruit from the orchard, shots with my sister, or making marmalade with Mum.

I’ve realised home is a metaphysical concept as much as it is physical. This home is the home of my wairua, my tīpuna, whenua and my whānau. I may never live there, but home will always be there.

My whakapapa carries me back. Home is where my dreams take me, to a rock shelf over the dark salt water, the scent of bull kelp on the tide, and the murmur of cicadas overhead in the pōhutukawa.

Aroha Gilling at the beach at Paripari, the whenua of her whakapapa. (Photo supplied)

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