Minnie Ratima, community champion of Maraenui, will be sadly missed. Photo / File
Minnie Ratima, community champion of Maraenui, will be sadly missed. Photo / File
EDITORIAL:
Many people wouldn't know who Minnie Ratima is, or who she was.
The community hero, who died at the weekend, was many great things, not least of which was a Maraenui matriarch with some serious mettle.
Over the years, we penned a few stories about her, most of themcentred on the grassroots graft in her beloved Maraenui suburb, where the social ill-winds blow hard, and often.
But it wasn't until she was nominated and eventually judged winner of our 2017 Hawke's Bay Today Person of the Year that we began to take serious notice.
"A photograph? Okay, I'd better see if I can find my teeth".
From memory, her search was unsuccessful. But I got the feeling she hardly cared. Like many who find a vocation in battling issues of such gravitas, appearances count for little.
She kept it real. Her stance offered us a somewhat uncomfortable but healthy shot of perspective. That's why she's so tough to eulogise.
Friend Megan Rose, who had worked with Minnie and nominated her for the Person of the Year, said it better than anyone in 2017.
"She has overcome many of the hurdles that she encourages others to conquer, and she has walked a path few would choose, but the pain of her own experiences is without bitterness."
Such experiences, Rose said, were instead used to gently remind others that they too were capable of breaking the cycles that threatened to bind them to a predestined future.
"She takes children on hīkoi to share time and experiences with people from different worlds to their own, reframing relationships with police, politicians and nature."
Hopefully she rests easy in the knowledge that her efforts on Maraenui's front line have sparked a groundswell of real change.
With or without dentures, that's something to smile about.
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