For 30 years, two dolphins have graced the grave of Anne Gribben’s 15-year-old son in Gardner Valley, but both have now been wrenched from their foundations, leaving her deflated and wondering about the values of those who stole them.
Anne’s son, Mana-Carl, died from a rare cancer at 15, not long after he had been on a trip for kids with cancer to SeaWorld in the United States and been mesmerised by the dolphins.
When Anne saw a pair of metal dolphins for sale, she wanted them for Mana-Carl’s grave. But the price was a couple of thousand dollars for the pair, and it wasn’t until the shop owner followed her down the footpath with a lower price, that she was able to buy them and install them on her son’s grave in the Gardner Valley cemetery.
For the past three decades, they have been “flying through the air”, attached only at the tail and mid body.
The two dolphins were designed for a fountain and stood about 1.5m tall and she suspects someone has stolen them for gardens rather than melting them down, as even though they look like brass, they are hollow and very light. The tail of the largest dolphin is still embedded in its solid base on the grave.
She’s not even particularly worried about getting them back – it’s more about respect and community values.
“When I found the second dolphin was gone, I was just deflated. I had a lot of stories around them from people who had enjoyed it. But I was talking to his picture on the wall after I heard about the second dolphin and I got the sense he (Mana-Carl) was talking to me and said: ‘Well Mum, the dolphin isn’t around, but they didn’t take me. I’m still here.’ It’s the sort of thing he’d say.”
Anne lives in Christchurch now and it was not until her brother visited the cemetery recently that she learnt the second dolphin had been removed from her son’s grave.
“It’s about values – not the cost or getting it returned, but about the value of respect and how values shape your communities.”
She wonders whether the people who take items from graves don’t realise the importance of the items for those who have lost family members.
Several generations of her family are buried in the small cemetery, including Mana-Carl’s grandmother beside him.
It’s one of the only cemeteries still tended solely by its community and Anne’s cousin has been looking after it. It has always been an important part of the community and highly valued, but he has told her that theft has become more common from cemeteries in the area and drug paraphernalia is often left lying around.
When she has visited her son’s grave, she has seen signs of drug use, including a syringe she picked up to dispose of safely.
Assuming she won’t see the dolphins again, she plans to get something small, perhaps made out of hardwood, to erect on her son’s grave which has a spot beside him where she will join him one day.
