What / Who am I doing this for?
We gathered at Melville Oval Hamilton. It was a drizzly, chilly morning and there were hundreds with me. There is a single light on the statue and far too many crosses on the lawn.
It was cold, bleak and depressing. I had left the comfort of a warm bed and a scalding shower. It was easy to slip into the question… What am I doing this for? Despite the countless ghost-like figures in the early morning gloom, I was in a solitary place.
The thought that rescued me from my self-pity was this. It must have been so much worse for those who first landed on the shores with bullets slaughtering the friend next to them. I did not have fear coursing through my veins. I knew that I would be going back to a warm home, a cup of rich espresso and a day of work that I relish. But these youth who could easily have been my son or daughter… What were they thinking? Did they ask the same question? What am I doing this for?
A better question would be WHO am I doing this for? The brutal, inescapable truth is that those teenagers did it for me. The answer to my question is… I am doing it for them.
We have never met. They lived and died decades earlier. They are but names on a monument to me. But they were real people with hopes, dreams, aspirations, laughter, tears and joy. Real bullets tearing through real flesh. Real breath, real bones, real death.
They did it for us. I did it for them and will continue to do so until that day when He who taught us that all life is sacred gathers us into His loving arms and we finally live in peace.