It was a sight you don't see everyday. A small girl maybe 6 or 7 with ash around her forehead and arms tugging at my jeans. I spun around, knelt to this young child's level and asked something so general (even stupid in light of what was going on around me), it is almost automatic at my age, 'are you OKAY sweetie?' I asked. With her tear ducts filling up with moisture, the girl throws her hands around my neck with the full force of her tiny body as she tries to tell me (in between sobs), that she has been separated from her mother and can't find her. I don't know where this girl has come from and nor do I care, as I lift her up and start walking with her, as the girl is cradled in my arms with her long feet wrapped around my hips. Three different camps we ventured into had no sign of her mother, and I was fearing the worst as my mind drifted to what one says to a child so young when her role model has been ripped away from her, as if stolen in the night. Lucky, I didn't have to, her mother was being comforted by some of her neighbours in the fourth camp site we visited. The mother thinking the same thing we both had, that mother and child were now gone forever - at least mortally from each other's side. As the mother thanked me for bringing her child back to her and I literally put this child back in her arms, I wondered why life is so random. It amazes me that a bush fire (wild fire) can clear one house, yet the house standing next to it remains intact. And in the same vein how one child can be left motherless or fatherless and the other isn't.
I don't know if there is such a thing as destiny when life is so random. I didn't understand it when I had to bury my mother too young (like Brandon buried his father), when all my friends were trying to get away from theirs, and yet the wild fires of life spared this family that grief that Brandon and I knew all too well. What it feels like to have your role model and almost the creator of your identity taken from you in such a way that you can never truly look in the mirror without seeing their shadow in your reflection. Those who have lost parents, sisters, partners understand this, and those who haven't - well, you will eventually. Some of us have had to journey life in much tougher waters at an earlier age than others.
I also have been grappling with some very surreal notions of what true devastation is. As an observer of these horrible bush fires, it has been difficult to have to constantly see faces with wounded souls. I have seen body bags brought out, and children playing cricket with a burned piece of log - unaware or perhaps only too aware of what this new life will bring.
How many people have been reduced to ash when all they have built and all they ever loved is nothing but debris on the floor? You can think about this literally if you like, or look at the deepness of your souls for what truly that is like. It is not something one should laugh at, or disrespect by making light that your life is any more important than the homeless man down the street, or the man who now lays in a body bag at The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, because he thought he could save his home – that represented the life he built. We all have homes, we all have families (as disjointed or dysfunctional as they may be sometimes), but they are ours. Same as those we choose to marry or partner with, those we befriend and claim as our lifeline, these are people who make up OUR SOUL. These are the people who know us intimately, they are apart of us, they help us through the tough times and let us rave on when we are elated with our lives. They are a part of our physical lives and some of them have seen us through times others haven't. These are the people who make up your village in your life, and when you go, only truly these individuals can understand, what kind of hole, life being so random, leaves for them.
Ever seen someone's face who has nothing left to show for their life? No house, no partner, no kids, no income left...not even running water? I tell you it is the closest thing that resembles hell that I have ever seen. The courage of people like that to find a way out of the debris and to build something again - it can never look or be the same, but the sun will eventually shine again and life is full of new beginnings. I met such a lady today - twin daughters...dead, husband...dead, home is gone and without insurance too, even her crop that she made her income from has nothing left to show for it. Yet when I asked if she would leave the small town she spent 25 years building a life in, she said without the slightest of hesitation, 'OF COURSE NOT, THIS IS WHERE I BELONG. THESE PEOPLE WILL GET ME THROUGH. I WILL GET THEM THROUGH,' she said before she bowed her head to cry for her family who are now in her past. The chaplan soon came over to try and help her deal with the grief that couldn't stop coming out of her eyes that morning. I also had to come to terms with the kind of courage that I have seen in these people, who before this weekend I didn't know existed, but whose pain I wish I could just write away.
Everyone has their own idea of reality - however accurate or inaccurate it may be. We all have our own definition of normal, but in your village tonight think about what truly is in your life. The mother-in-law you can't stand, or that annoying younger brother you have who can't seem to get his shit together, the friend who thinks he still will win that lottery and buys those scratchy tickets like they were going out of style, or that idiot you work with who always manages to say the most inappropriate thing at the worst possible moment - these are the people who help make up your village. Good or bad they make us who we are. The people in our lives are in it for a reason...even if you think it would be nice to MOVE FAR AWAY SO THEY CAN'T VISIT.
It's that notion of what true destiny is that I find frustrating. Perhaps it is not the way your life ends that is destiny, but how your life comes together. The rest - well, perhaps that is just random and one day we all will be on the floor holding the debris of our current life.
Be good to each other...and hold someone or something real tonight. Don't worry about that guy who cut you off in traffic, or that bill you just got for your cell phone that is going to max out your credit. If you spend your whole life worrying about other things, other people or circumstances you wish were truly the reality - you are always going to be searching for something or an experience you never will understand or feel happy about. Life is not about struggling, it is not about who you know or what you make, it is about who you are inside that all - despite all that other stuff. I know many people who cannot open their true hearts because they are afraid of the reality of their own normal. So they create, they hand out fake love as if two words to some random stranger is going to erase what they can't deal with underneath that all. It is the most common sight in the developed world - misplaced love. And its soul destroying.
If you are still reading this you may think to yourself, what on earth does this have to do with Brandon Lee? Well, perhaps nothing or perhaps far more than you realize. Brandon was a humanitarian and he was a human being underneath the facets of his own projected image. His reality and the truthfulness of his character and life - what else could be so inspirational? Brandon was always seeking for more knowledge, but at the same time was keeper of some truly profound ideas and experiences about mankind and life. He didn't believe in wasting time, and he loved the simply act of just sitting down with someone and having a chat with them - shaking hands, slapping a back or beating someone at pool. Those rather simple joys he never thought would end when they did. Same as, I am sure, my mother always thought she would see me graduate college and get married, or that primary school teacher at Marysville Primary who took all that work home with her on Friday because she thought she would have time on Saturday - instead she was dead before lunch. Don't waste this life people - be inspired but do something extraordinary with it. Brandon taught me that and its one lesson after almost 17 years I am still amazed that I LIVE IT. We are not perfect as beings, but life isn't about perfection, its about living - and sometimes living means going through the bad stuff too.
The NIN song, 'Non-Entity' is playing in my head right now. Trent Reznor's amazing lyrics and vocals always reach out to me when I am at a loss of basic comprehension about an experience. As I finished yet another interview, I listened to the words as they tried to console my soul that was hoping such destruction was anywhere but with a nation I love so much. Sadly, the randomness of life would make it so, that if it wasn't Australia, it would be some other nation - perhaps one that doesn't have the type of honesty and resilience (stemming probably from our isolation in the world and our survival spirit) that Australia does. I want to leave you with Trent's words. I hope your journey makes it through many more days yet...and as always, 'keep the faith'. Brandon's words were not about religion, but about the courage to believe in yourself, trust in your own dreams that has the capacity to reign supreme over life’s adversity, if you let it.
NON- ENTITY - NIN
The sky is not the same shade of blue
Every single thing I believe isn't true
Missing in the maze of monochrome
How did I get here, how can I go home
The echoes in my eyes, of all they used to see
Burning down the world, the ashes and debris
And all that's left to me, non-entity
Try to stand the line, try to obey
The ghost of what I was keep getting in the way
Staring at the sun, I'm blinded by the light
Now I'm afraid I'm fading out of sight
The echoes in my eyes, of all they used to see
Burning down the world, the ashes and debris
And all that's left of you, and all that's left of me
All have washed away, non-entity..
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