KEY POINTS:
Nobody, not even her family, knows why Folole Muliaga died this week. There are so many questions that have to be answered before the tragic chain of events that led to Folole's death can be explained.
But this story has touched many New Zealanders, right around the country. And it's easy to see why.
Here was a family that came to New Zealand for a better life for their kids, just as our forebears did. They arrived six years ago, and they went to work - Folole as a preschool teacher, Lopaavea as a chef's assistant. They weren't earning a fortune - in fact, they were pretty much on the minimum wage - but the two enjoyed their work and were valued and appreciated by their employers.
And then Folole got sick.
She had to take leave from work to try to recover; Lopaavea reduced his hours to help his wife and to be there for his kids. The bills kept coming in and there were six people to feed in that beautifully maintained home.
On a kitchen hand's wage, it's damn near impossible to make ends meet, even with the Working for Family's scheme.
Again, that's a situation with which many New Zealanders can empathise. When you're just scraping by, you're only a stumble away from financial disaster. And the panic sets in - you start robbing Peter to pay Paul, you fall behind so interest on the bills accrues and the mire gets deeper and deeper. There would be more than a few families who know that feeling. And if you're dignified, proud people, you don't beg. You don't bludge. There are plenty of people in a worse situation than you, so you just knuckle down and pray for a miracle.
Sure, those families who've grown up as third or fourth generation beneficiaries might know how to work the system and know exactly what they're entitled to in terms of payments, but when you've never asked for a handout, when you don't even know where your local WINZ office is located, you're not going to march in and start thumping the desk.
Middlemore Hospital has expressed surprise that Mrs Muliaga died as quickly as she did once her oxygen machine was switched off.
I'm no medical expert but surely, if you combine heart disease with panic - panic that her source of oxygen was gone, panic about the wellbeing of her family living in a home without electricity, panic about how on earth she was going to pay the arrears and a disconnection fee - that would pretty much strain a weak heart. And to those self-righteous souls out there who were wondering why the two boys were at home with their mother and not out working, Ietitaia was on study leave for exams, and 18-year-old Tesi had passed up an arts scholarship to university to stay at home and help his mother get back on her feet. Why didn't they get help earlier? Well, their mother told them not to worry, she'd be all right and they believed her. Mrs Muliaga was probably worried about the cost of an ambulance, a further burden for a family stretched to breaking point. And so she died. And a decent, hardworking family has suffered a blow from which they will never recover. It used to be in this country that if you were honest and a good worker, it counted for something. You had a wage on which you could raise a family and you had the respect of your community. My, how we've changed. These days, being poor is seen as a character failing, being respectable is something to be sneered at. No wonder this story has made headlines right around the world.
The Muliaga family are the collateral damage a community suffers when a consumerist, dog eat dog, greed is good orthodoxy prevails. And maybe people are starting to realise that it's too high a price to pay.
If you want to help the Muliaga family, you can donate to a Westpac account: 03-0173-0419547-27.
