I woke this morning wondering how best to honour the victims and survivors of Black Saturday, this being our country’s  National Day of Mourning.

Whilst watching and weeping as events were broadcast, would have been entirely acceptable, it did seem a little self indulgent.  Sitting in my comfy space, having lost nothing, I wondered how that would be honouring anyone or anything?

So instead, the kids and I ventured to the Tree Chapel at our local botanical garden.  The little boys said a prayer of thanks for the packet of chips I had bought for them, whilst the eldest (self conscious) listened as I prayed for those lost souls and survivors.  More than just a prayer of need, I wanted the children to know of my thanks and gratitude.  That amongst the loss and grief, there was much to be grateful for.

As we walked the grounds, I felt the grass, moist and green lick at my toes.  Icky and delicious at the same time.  We stopped and wondered under an enormous tree, branches so high and heavy, they draped a curtain around us.  Green foliage brushed our faces as we pushed through into the world, from one perfect place to another.   The children discovered a cache of acorns, greedily stuffing them into their pockets to take home to Dad.  We ran and we wandered.  Little one’s laughter and chattering swept passed and around me on the wind.

At times I noticed the other folks around us.  Most going about the duty of parenting, their frowning faces lost to their task.  Always one to jump to condescension, today I saw them, and saw myself only yesterday.  Heavy and laden with life.  Today however, with my thoughts of the fallen, I had shrugged off my own hardship and allowed a light to shine.  I felt a connection.  A connection to the land and all those that love her like I do.
I walked barefoot on the same earth, raised my face to the same sunlight.  Felt a breeze that at one time had fanned flames, that now caressed and nurtured.

Sometimes a moment is all we get.  You’d better be ready and willing and open, coz tomorrow, when the kids are bickering, and your brain is pulsating in your skull (from that fictitious tumour you’re always telling people you might be getting), gratitude will just be a word that makes you roll your eyes.  You’ll go back to your disconnectedness, just like me.

We should certainly count our blessings, but we should also make our blessings count.
Neil A. Maxwell

 

They say the hardest thing you’ll ever experience, is the death of a loved one. But in reality, the hard part is  the living after.  There is an emotional high that comes with grief.  A soaring misery that peaks and troughs, leaving us disoriented and adrift.  It is an ecstasy of extremes, that leaves us feeling like survival is our only goal.  That if we make it through the first few weeks, through that initial vacuum of shock, that somehow we’ll come out the other side, shinier.  In reality, life takes on a burnished, dullness.  Like Dorothy in Kansas.  The grief party runs out of steam, the entourage of mourners move on to their own place of grieving, and the solitary, endless road lies before you.

Reality bites in the silence.  The empty space where they once stood.  The space that will never be filled.  You realise in that space that you could breath another trillion breaths, and still never see them.  The length of your life stretches out before you, incessant and unbareable.  The phone bill arrives and they’re still not there.  Newest favourite song on the radio…not there.  You get sick…not there.  Not there.  Never again.  Their loss imprints itself upon you, like  a mournful veil.  A veil that forces people to the other side of the street, a veil that suddenly stops the phone ringing.  A veil that beggars the question “How can I go on?”

One day without your loved one is extreme in its ache.  Ten years is an endless hole that stretches inside you.

“There are things that we don’t want to happen but have to accept, things we don’t want to know but have to learn, and people we can’t live without but have to let go.”  ~Author Unknown

In remembrance of all that have perished, and those that are tasked with the living.

Australian Bushfires February 2009

The scent of smoke on the air, nudged us swiftly on as we buckled ourselves into the back of Mum and Dad’s old station wagon. My parents in the front.  Silent as  time weighed heavily upon them.  My sister chattering like an oblivious gnat while I also kept a silent vigil.  The odour of diesel mingled with heat filled the car, as two hundred litres of fuel journeyed with us.   On a mercy run, back into the fires.  There was no one to call for help.  No authority figures to tell of our plight.  Just a motley crew of hobby farmers and the nicest kind of societal drop outs.  Ready to protect theirs and ours.  A truck with the words  “Rural Fire Service”  in faded stencil across the side standing  as a wheeled beacon, waiting.

And so we travelled, the truck our destination, the fuel our charge.  The fires remained on the horizon for a time, but as we entered that final stretch home, it stalked us at every turn.  The road, now dirt, narrowed, and within three minutes we would enter the clearing where others waited anxiously for us.  Driving tentatively so as not to dislodge our incendiary cargo, my Dad remained silent.   We tried to ignore the flames now within metres of our car, but very quickly it became apparent that we are no longer driving into safety.  Dad hit the brakes and put the car into reverse.  Head  turned, his arm reaching across to Mums seat, his eyes never left the road behind us.  “Dad!  What are you doing?”  my sister asks.  Through gritted teeth he replies “The back of the car is full of bloody fuel!” In reverse, the journey is even longer, and it seems the flames had followed us down.  Silently I sat  as my sister wept for her potentially burnt toys at home.  I think the words “I don’t give a bloody shit about your toys”, may have been muttered, however to acknowledge her distress would have meant acknowledging that we were in a lot of trouble.

As harrowing as this sounds, clearly we survived, Dad having found an alternate track down to the truck.  Later after the sun had set, I was able to walk the top road.  The scorched earth glowed and smouldered.  Off in the distance, people continued to shovel dirt onto hot spots.  What sticks in my mind most from that day however, isn’t the heat, or the smoke, or the fear.  It was a realisation.  The realisation that my father was the bravest man in the world, and that he would never let anything happen to us.   As time stood still for that moment, as he stared straight passed me I  saw the truth.  The truth of who he was.

Today, in a tragic and devastating chain of events, more then seventy six Australians died.  Many more are unaccounted for, feared dead. Whole families, just like ours, gone!   I weep at their loss, as I have empathised with their fear.  I hope tonight brings some reprieve to those who have toiled arduously.  Paid or voluntary, truly they have shown the truth of who they are.