They died shopping, not in a war zone – it could have happened to any of us
WHAT IS most chilling about the tragic events of Saturday is that they occurred in the most ordinary and relatable of settings.
We all shop. We send our teenage kids off to Saturday jobs at Sephora or Mcdonald’s, or to make tea in the hair salons in these huge retail centres.
We give our youngsters their first taste of independence by leaving them to wander with their friends.
Or as I did that same afternoon, at another Westfield – as the stabbing frenzy was taking place on the other side of the harbour – we separate and arrange to meet half an hour later. ‘Love the nail colour,’ I said to my daughter, as I left her having a manicure while I returned a shirt to TK Maxx.
It is inconceivable that in that simplest, most prosaic of moments, I could have been waving goodbye to her forever. The stories emerging are hard to process because it is a tragedy that could have happened to any of us – those killed were not in a war zone.
They weren’t in an American school where random killings are the sad consequence of ineffective gun laws. They weren’t in a skyscraper or at a concert where cowardly killers know they can wreak the most damage.
Rather, they happened in a shopping mall amidst ordinary, everyday scenes. A dad taking his kids shopping for gifts for their mum’s birthday. A mum sending her 11-year- old son back to Woolworths to grab an item she’d forgotten. Teenagers marking the first day of the autumn school holidays by trying on Selena Gomez’s new range of blusher. And then into that ease, that normality, comes a scuffle, a movement spotted out of the corner of an eye that doesn’t chime with the rhythms and routines of shopping.
Some see a man with a knife. They start running. Others freeze. One shopper will later say that she felt a sharp pain in her back. Only later will she learn that it came from a knife. And then there’s the panic. Is there one attacker? What if there’s more? And what if there’s a bomb?
On Saturday most people ran into shops, where staff raced to slide down the aluminium roller doors to keep those inside safe. Some hid in bathrooms or stairwells. And because there are multiple levels in this flagship Westfield centre, some grabbed their phones to record the pandemonium unfolding on the floor below.
It is those videos, of the knifeman charging at shoppers, that bring the danger home to us like never before.
How do you protect yourself when tragedy can strike anywhere, any time?
Today I have discussed with my daughters where is best to hide, whether to run, whether to help and the types of trauma you might experience from seeing such events unfold. Along with the barbarism came the best of humanity. Much praise has gone to “Bollard Man” Silas despreaux, who bravely fought off the attacker with a bollard and prevented him from accessing a play area where there were dozens of young children.
And then there’s the dad who appeared to grab eye masks from a store so that he could place them over his children’s eyes to shield them from the carnage.
If horror comes in the most unlikely of places, so does common sense. Psychological scars can run deep.
We’re grateful the King and Queen and the Prince and Princess of Wales sent messages. Camaraderie, community, Commonwealth – they matter.