“We got busy with our lives, until we somehow lost touch,” Margaret said.
Kathy hadn’t given up entirely. After moving to Auckland from Suva, she went looking for her old friend. She had no luck.
“When I migrated to NZ, I had been looking for her, but I wasn’t looking in the right places,” she said.
The breakthrough came out of nowhere.
Members of the Auckland Garden Club dropped by Arvida Parklane, one of more than 30 Arvida Group retirement villages nationwide, a couple of months ago for a look through the residents’ gardens.
One of the visitors had a connection with Kathy. A photo went out to confirm it really was her and a phone number followed.
“If it wasn’t for the Auckland Garden Club visiting, we probably would never have met,” Margaret said. “It was our village that sort of brought us together.”
The pair spoke on the phone first.
“It is very exciting. We had a long chat over the phone for over an hour,” Kathy said.
Last week, more than half a century since they’d last seen each other, Kathy visited Arvida Parklane in person, while her daughter was in town. They had lunch at the village restaurant and didn’t leave for hours.
“We had about three and a half hours together. We just chatted,” Margaret said.
They went through old photos from Kathy’s years in Fiji. They filled in the gaps – families, careers, five decades of catching up.
“It’s a small world,” Kathy said.
“I never expected it to happen, but amazingly it did.”
They’re not planning on losing touch again.
“We’ve both got a phone number, so we can chat to one another,” Margaret said.