“I can’t believe the news today
I can’t close my eyes and make it go away”
– “Sunday, Bloody Sunday”, U2
I have loved that song for a long, long time, and yet those words have never had meaning like they do at the moment. This weekend has seen the worst fires that this fire-prone nation has seen since European settlement, and there are just so many horrific stories. I’m in the lucky ones: I don’t have friends who have died – though I do have some who have lost homes, or whose homes are still under threat. I feel like a fraud – this disaster has cost me nothing yet I still want to grieve – who does that?
But these fires have taken places and communities that I hold dear. I grew up in Bendigo, where the fire came as close as 2km from the absolute centre of town. I’ve played football at Kinglake where there have been too many fatalities to really be able to understand. I proposed to my wife in Marysville – a town that essentially no longer exists but for a shell, and a whole lot of heartbreak.
Even more than the places, it is the stories that hurt. Stories of people who could so easily be me; people who have lost family, friends, teachers, students, neighbours and essentially their whole communities. They are stories that I don’t want to hear, and yet feel compelled to listen to, watch and read. If feels so self-indulgent to grieve people I’ve never met – to want to recover from a loss I’m not experiencing. Let’s face it, this whole post is pretty pretentious. I want to explain myself, but I can’t. It just feels bad.
(Aside: let me encourage anyone out there to donate to the Red Cross who are coordinating the relief response locally. Especially if you’re an American – the Aussie dollar is doing crap against the US so your money will go about twice as far 
)
We mourn with those who mourn……
Hey Geoff. I understand so much the pain and frustration. Even though we are close to the fires and have had to remain vigilant, even to this moment when I am typing this we’ve decided to take turns to stay up overnight, it still feels surreal and bizarre.
Please, let me give you permission to feel the empathy for these many many tragedies that have occurred. Let the empathy not feel like guilt, but compassion. Let the pain not paralyse you, but spur you into action. The action needed will be long term. Donation of time, money etc will be needed well into the future. Communities need support, your skills could be well utilised in communities across the board.
Most of all though, I want to thank you, if you didn’t feel the compassion and emotion that you are feeling I would be more worried about you. To be human is to be humane.
I don’t find it at all self-indulgent. If fact I feel similar- I tear up watching the news and then feel guilty that technically I have nothing to cry about. Instead I should be rejoicing! But I think that simply what we are experiencing is empathy and compassion. So let it be felt, and then you’ll be in a better position to relate to those you come into contact with who really are personally affected by this whole horrible tragedy.
I totally understand the need to grieve. I’m not even there hearing the horrific stories yet I found myself almost crying at some Costa Rican bus stop whe the reality of the death toll and houses lost set in. Glad to know it’s not just me.
I can only imagine how hard it’d be when you’re overseas and all this is happening. I powerless enough when there’s little things I can do to help people here, but it can’t be easy having much less information filter through and not really being able to do anything.