The Star: April 04, 2019

The Star Thursday April 4 2019
news online at www.star.kiwi 17
THE PAST three weeks have
flown by with a series of
emotions driving each day.
From the numbness that
accompanies the shock of being
told of the shootings and the
sheer inability to accept or even
begin to process what happened,
through to experiencing the
extraordinary capacity for
forgiveness shown by survivors
of this atrocity and feeling the
incredible outpouring of love
and solidarity from across
Christchurch, New Zealand and
the world.
The clarity of the phrase –
“we are broken-hearted but we
are not broken” – reverberated
across South Hagley Park and
was applauded by the thousands
of people who were not Muslim,
but who had come to the Call to
Prayer to show support for their
fellow community members,
reconfirming their faith in the
wake of this tragedy. And then
Mayor
Lianne Dalziel
Reflecting on
an emotional
few weeks
we heard about the infinite
capacity for forgiveness and
the most powerful expression
of love imaginable from a man,
whose heart had no room for the
kind of hatred that fuelled the
attack that took his wife’s life.
March 15, 2019, will not see
us defined by what was an act
of terrorism, but rather by the
many acts of heroism that are
still emerging, these expressions
of forgiveness and love, and the
shared commitment to come together
and stay together, as one.
Each one of us has to make
this commitment in order to
make it real. Over the next few
weeks we will create opportunities
for communities to come
together and work out how we
make this happen.
•If you want to ask Ms
Dalziel a question, email
mayor@ccc.govt.nz. Put
Reader’s Question in the
subject line.
Budding young artist
GOOD NEWS! After a standard
“where is my food?” tantrum I
found my mouse.
Vittoria’s tantrum, not mine,
just to be clear.
My morning routine generally
consists of dragging myself out
of bed while Vittoria causes
chaos out of reach before
struggling to get both her and
my breakfasts ready before her
hungry tantrum kicks in.
It’s surprising how much you
sweat when a small child is
screaming into the kitchen while
you try and let your wife sleep
in.
So last Friday, as I “took too
long” to get her Wheet-Bix and
fruit ready, Vittoria took to
pulling apart the shoe rack to
teach me a lesson.
Normally I’d step in to stop it,
but in the interest of expediency
I decided to just put it all back
together after we’d eaten.
Lo and behold, underneath
the running shoes I definitely
only talk about using was my
mouse. Thank the lord.
This week, Vittoria got her
first set of crayons. They’re out of
reach when she’s not under strict
supervision.
The walls in our rental
property are cream, I intend for
them to stay that way.
Laura managed to get her to
draw onto a pad while I was out
a couple of weeks ago and we
hung it on the fridge.
I’ve finally reached that stage
of life. So we got her the crayons
in the interest of seeing her be
able to artistically express herself
more often.
I don’t know artists because
I’m a complete philistine, but
she’s just like that classical
artist who would pour so much
passion into their art that they
eventually tear it up and eat
some of it.
So we have one more
masterpiece on the fridge so far.
In regards to my morning
VITTORIA
& Matt
DRAW:
Vittoria
playing
with her
first set of
crayons.
routine, I will be enjoying my
first sleep-in in some time on
Sunday. I’m going away for the
dragon boat nationals at Lake
Karapiro from Thursday evening
to Sunday night.
It’ll be the longest time I’ve
been away from Vittoria, so
there’s a tinge of sadness to my
excitement.
•Former Star Media
journalist Matt Salmons
has become a stay-athome
dad. We follow his
journey weekly.
Don’t assume your smoke alarms are working.
Push the button to check them this daylight saving weekend.
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