We're changing day to day,
But tell me, where do the children play?"
But tell me, where do the children play?"
- Cat Stevens
In the sunset corner of the Magiagi cemetery, at the western
end of Vaivase Rd ,
there is a small overgrown patch, bound in corroding steel posts and chain, where
rest two of Nana’s siblings.
When Dad- Cornwall- visited earlier this year, he recalled
visiting the children’s grave with his mother, half century ago, before
departing Samoa . We searched, amid the familiar
names of early Samoa , evidently still neighbours-
Brighouse's and Paul’s, Retzlaff’s and Merideths’, but the grave we sought was
elusive on that day.
It was ‘Aunty’ Freida who later helped me, remembering the burial
in a conversation- though I do not know the story of their deaths. By chance, I found
myself at the cemetery again last evening- walking past on my way somewhere else,
less important. I remembered Aunty Frieda’s directions, and in the dying
daylight, strayed in. Without her help, I could not have found the inconspicuous
plot, or the headstone concealed by ivy and grass, nor would I have had reason
to strip away the vegetation to read:
In Loving Memory of
Zita Shirley Lenore
Aged 8 years
Alan Lloyd Revere
Aged 7 years
Children of Henry
Lloyd
And
Teulia Diana Halliday
Died Apia
Samoa 1927
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