During the first week of January, I walked my brothers’ dog through the familiar streets of my hometown. I walked past my once Primary school, the old milk bar now a cafe and the street we spent so many hours playing cops and robbers with toy cap guns. The smoke reached us today. I reminisced on the beautiful childhood I had and thought of the children affected by the crisis of our country being on fire.
These children have lost their childhood, forced to grow up far too young, forced into a crisis with shattered hearts, forced to understand our government has let them down, forced to understand life will be different now.
Lost in my thoughts I found myself crossing the street, paused in the medium strip waiting for the cars to pass. The final car halted and waved me across. I looked in their direction and waved with a smile on my face. I caught eyes with the man behind the vehicles wheel and realised this man was a firefighter.
His face appeared worn, not through age but mirroring the terrors he’d seen now imprinted across his permanently creased brow. Black soot covering parts of his face. I couldn’t tell if he knew, or if he even cared. His yellow fire suit no longer yellow but stained dark brown with lines of black from brushing through burnt trees. I proceeded to mouth thank you and gave a small bow, he gave a weak smile and drove on through, I liked to believe he knew I was thanking him for more than letting me across the road. I spent the entire week thinking of this man.
Two things struck me, a firefighter who had far more important things to tend to, was still being courteous enough to let me cross the road when the seven cars prior hadn’t. And even in a moment of complete devastation, he hadn’t forgotten to be kind, he hadn’t forgotten himself.
This was the summer Australians had been fearing, the summer we’d had nightmares about, the summer we prayed would be filled with beach days and sunburn after a busy decade. Anything but this. With the aftermath of Black Saturday in 2010 still looming, reappearing at the forefront of our minds, our hearts increasing in speed, and the involuntary goose bumps we receive every time we relive the memory of where we were when the news came out. The 180 people dead, the 3500 properties obliterated, thousands of native flora and fauna destroyed and bush reduced to nothing more than black barely recognisable lumps in the soil.
Australians on that horrendous weekend stayed quiet and assumed we would make alterations as a country. Climate Change wasn’t yet a buzz word, people didn’t know what it was and were sceptical of any truth behind the claims.
Fast forward a decade, and I wish there was another way to write this, but Australia is on fire. I watched the updates for a month whilst overseas, completely helpless in viewing on television places I had been and loved burn on American newscasts. I cried in the airport in Canada while strangers watched, after learning about the news of two young fathers Geoffrey Keaton, 32, and Andrew O’Dwyer, 36 tragically dying — heroes, I hope their families understand. I donated money from afar. I had to avert my eyes and heart when random Canadians and Americans complained about our government, not theirs, how we deserved this after our inaction. How Scott Morrison was worse than Donald Trump; Hawaii honestly. Nobody deserves this.
I’ve said a few times my heart felt broken watching what was happening to our country. But on reflecting on this I have to amend the comment.
My heart swells with pride, for this country, for the people and the heart we all have.
I understand we’ve made mistakes; I understand more land has been burnt than ever recorded but we’ve lost fewer lives, we seem more educated, we seem more together than ever before, and Australia should be proud.
We as a country simply can’t forget what this feels like, we can’t forget the families in a month’s time they need us more than ever, we can’t forget the children which are now adults, we can’t forget climate change, we can’t forget we need to make changes.
This doesn’t end when the last fire goes out.
Stand up for what you believe and stand up for our country.
Blaming others helps no one, do what you can, protect yourself and families, donate when you can, fight when others no longer have the energy to fight.
I hope the firefighter who let me cross the road doesn’t lose himself, I hope he doesn’t lose hope, I hope he doesn’t lose his life because we need more people like him, we need him.
Australia is still our country. I want other Australian children to experience the beauty this country offers. I want them to run through the bush with the branches scratching their legs. I want them to see the dark green foliage. I want them to run through the bush with the wind in their hair, smiles on their faces and the familiar smells of the great Australian bush, untainted with the smell of smoke.
Australia is our home.
