14/12/2025
Ten-year-old me would be sewing right now; I wish I had my machine but that’s still In Hobart, however twenty-one-year-old me is finishing work and heading to give blood. I know it’s a small act, but I feel compelled to do something. This is it. Blood is desperately needed. If you are able to, please consider donating, too.
In 2015, when the Paris terrorist attacks struck, I was only ten years old. The sheer scale of the horror—the why, the reason, the unimaginable act—was beyond my comprehension. Then, the news hit closer to home: a young Hobart woman, Emma Parkinson, was injured while on the other side of the world. That a tragedy of such magnitude could touch someone from my own town, someone I might have passed on the street, was truly stunning, an unseen horror that suddenly became real.
Yesterday, I finished work on a blistering hot day. I called my Mum; the family was busy at home. "It's so busy there," I told her, "I'll call you later. It’s so hot I'm heading to Bondi."
Just two hours later, I was back on the phone, and all she could hear was a frantic reassurance: "I’m okay. When you see the news, know that I’m okay."
My friends and I had headed to Bondi. It was packed—a beautiful Sydney day filled with people, festivals, and delight. In a matter of minutes, that gorgeous day turned into what will forever be known as one of Sydney’s darkest.
I was only a kilometre away—I had literally just left the beach when it began. A terrorist attack, not across the world, but in what is now my own home city. And once again, a young person from Hobart was right there, in the thick of it.
These things remain utterly senseless. Though I am no longer ten, but now twenty-one, I still cannot grasp the logic of the illogical. My heart is completely broken for the injured, and for the grieving families who have lost loved ones.
Be kind, always.
