Twelve Months

Twelve months ago, we were glued to our television screens. Breathing shallowly we watched the flames race across Victoria, swallowing everything in their grasp.

The firestorm raged on

and on

and on.

We sat here, hundreds of kilometres away and cried as we listened to the body count rise; as they found more people dead. Dead in the streets, in their cars, in their houses. People who never had a chance, even as they ran from the flames.

The devastation unfolded before us and I’m not sure we comprehended it. Not entirely.

173 people dead. The worst bushfires ever.

Black Saturday they christened it, in the aftermath.

And I sit here and type while I listen to people on TV cry, twelve months later, and I remember. The faces of the broken and the grieving. The people at the community centres, waiting for word from family members who stayed behind.

I held my newborn son, and I stood in front of the TV, rocking backwards and forwards with his head tucked under my chin and I cried.

Twelve months on and we remember.

Oh how we remember.

We will never forget.