Alan Duff: Now is the hour to say goodbye

Sonny Bill Williams is tackled after making one of the offloads that inspired players worldwide. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Not going to write a last column without having a counter crack at the sports journos calling for Sonny Bill's axing. 23 tackles, several magnificent offloads and turnovers in his last test and still not good enough?

How about single-handedly changing world rugby by introducing a repertoire of off-loads that made fans gasp and players worldwide copy him? Nope. Not good enough for these carping commentators.

You have to understand a journalist does not write from playing or coaching experience. He is not even a distant cousin to an All Black. Nor impartial. Same guys who said Dan Carter was over the hill and Richie looking tired before the pair went on to contribute majorly to winning the 2015 RWC.

Why call for someone's axing if he's not playing badly? How does such naked written expression help SBW play better? They write this stuff because, as very ordinary people, criticism is all they've got. They've never taken a risk, dared to step out onto a frightening big stage and perform. They're virtual players, full of sound and fury, as the Bard said. Signifying nothing.

On saying goodbye, I'm got something of a snitcher on a mate who died a year ago and didn't bid us farewell. Saying this because I wanted to tell him thanks for his advice, his outrageous humour and bubbling personality. Goodbyes are important.

A snitcher on everyone who has a chance to say farewell, adieu, and doesn't. This mate was a friend to so many people he ought to have felt an obligation to say last words and give us a chance to say thanks and express our love and admiration. We should all feel that obligation.

I've got a thing about eulogies being all about the only person who can't hear them. So a eulogy is for family and friends? Why not say them to the dying person - if we have the chance? On five occasions in my adult life I spoke deeply private words to people who were dying. I think both sides benefited.

We're back soon from France. The several farewell parties put on for us nearly ten years ago are still clear in our minds. Why don't we do the same for the dying?

I hope I don't go of cancer, but one good thing is, you get to say goodbye and thanks, give and receive love. It is love we all want. Sharing memories, having a last chuckle. Paying tribute to hearing ears.

The last time I ended a column was 2001, ten years after I'd started, thanks to Bob Jones who set up a meeting with the Dominion Post editor and got syndicated around the country. Bob's column gave my first novel a big sales boost. We became good friends.

Writing is in my genes and life influences; my Maori relations' beautiful singing voices, my outrageous, volatile mother who gave me real life drama, my father who instilled a love of reading in us, his mother who had a single novel published, and my grandfather Oliver who was editor of the Christchurch Press and founding editor of the New Zealand Listener. In retirement he wrote a marvellous column called 'Sundowner.'

Here's an excerpt: "Then I remembered my first wonderful week as a journalist and that brief exaltation of spirit went out like a candle in the wind. On three successive days I was publicly denounced by a Catholic priest for irreverence and infidelity, accused in an article in a church magazine of taking my orders from Rome, and sneered at as a Christian in a letter from a Rationalist."

That does not for a moment let the first-mentioned journalists off the hook. But it does make one aware that, what we think shines bright and pure looks like a ray of evil to others.

I regarded my column as a conversation. A relationship between me and the readers. If it seems obvious I had the only say, then that is a false perception. The best conversations reflect understanding of the other's point of view.

A good conversation is a meeting of equals, not one dominating and the other haplessly listening. Or else it's one-way traffic and your car never leaves the garage. I hope my column reflected a majority of viewpoints in that I have always kept it simple and honest - like most Kiwis are.

A column comes with responsibilities; why we should never make it personal and only rarely name names. As one of a handful of Maori columnists I had a responsibility to comment honestly and frankly on Maori issues. But never a mandate to simply criticise without offering solutions or suggestions.

I am going on to other things. So why does it still feel like losing a bunch of friends? Nah. That's just being emotional. As that character I created said, "I'll be back." Arohanui.