My entire life is shaken by ill fate coming to my fellows. I am no stranger to it. A couple of wars and a fatal mass-accident to my classmates when a child has given me insight about how my soul dims in times like this. I do not escape until I lay my life at the altar of my grief and return a changed person. I carry these times with me in where I am, how I look, how I move, how I speak. Nobody is forgotten. Nothing. Not a wheezing bomb. Not a drawn-faced teacher. All here with me.
It is a time like this, and I laid my life down at the altar of my grief. My soul dims and my heart is shaken. Only, this time, here, it is not in quiet, not in solitude, not a shameful, incomprehendible, even dangerous act of spirituality that needs to be concealed, like a guerilla act, pretending to be silly, neglectful or thoughtless even rather than caring. It is what we all do. People around me care more than my unpracticed life allows me to. As occupied as I am with empathy, good wishes and loving deeds, I am not as practiced as some of us. I have no resources apart from my innate will, and looking around me, I find guidance, I find words, I find support in my need to grieve and love.
Dear loving Christchurch. I feel at home at last.