Sentiments
with Whitney & Harry
`
12 Aug 2020
PHOTOGRAPHY:
Ophelia King
PHOTOGRAPHY:
Ophelia King
"A few days after New Years, I discovered I was hapū again. We'd just been on holiday at Waiheke for a week, so I was barefoot and sunburned, in the kitchen peeling kumara for Wiremu's dinner, coming to terms with my emotions because we were going to have another baby. I turned around with peeler in hand and Harry was there, on one knee, with this beautiful kauri wood box he’d made – with a ring inside it!"
— Whitney
“Baby number two picked my timing for me, and I was able to slip the proposal on top of that news. We took a photo moments later of us and our first son Wiremu laying in bed together, we have dumb grins on our face and tears in our eyes, and he is just happy to be hanging out with his folks on our bed. That photo is on the centre of our mantlepiece.”
— Harry
— Whitney
"My Koro and his identical twin brother were both World War II pilots and Whakairo carvers, me and my cousins inherited some old materials from when they were alive, including pounamu. I had a handful of polished offcuts from either my Koro or his brother, and have no idea where they came from before that, but knowing they have been in my family for years they were important to me, as all I inherited from Koro was these few materials, and old hair brush from World War II and skinny legs."
— Harry
“This taonga means so much, it represents and further establishes a lifelong bond between us and our families for our babies and the generations to come in the future. It’s a physical representation of connection through whakapapa.”
“Pounamu is ideal to me, for its enduring and protective qualities. It’s a high vibration stone that absorbs energy. So I’m wearing this throughout the powerful and magical time of my second hapūtanga, growing together, and it’s absorbing the gifts our babies bring us. Wiremu gave me the gift of joy, and with this one I feel peaceful and content. So our children and mokopuna will inherit this treasure as an heirloom that is full of so much love, joy and peace.”
“It glows in the light, because it was designed that way, and I imagine all the love we have in our life, and spreading it around everywhere. I’m stupidly happy with it.”
— Whitney