"Holes in the Universe": Memories from Ground Zero of the Sydney siege.

A year ago today marks the day my workplace was locked down as the horrendous events unfolded in Sydney’s Martin Place during the Lindt Café Sydney Siege, where a lone gunman, Man Haron Monis, held ten customers and eight employees hostage.

I later learned that four of my fellow employees were begging for their lives, after having simply popped out of the office that morning to grab a cup of coffee.

I’m not one for public spectacles and I prefer to avoid crowds but, in the days that followed the Lindt Café siege, I had an innate need to visit the impromptu public memorial that had sprung up in the Martin Place pedestrian mall. I was mourning the loss of two innocent lives, the horrors inflicted on the survivors and also a more personal impact of experiencing an evil that had scratched its claws across my city.

Just walking up Sydney’s bustling George Street that day, I could already tell that things were different. While there was the usual lunchtime throng of shoppers and people out for lunch, it was very obvious that there was another flow of people coming off buses and trains, all heading in the same direction. Many of them were carrying flowers. Some held elaborate bunches, others were a simple collection of colourful Gerberas.

Mourning in that public place with hundreds of other people was an unexpectedly intimate experience. As I stood at the barrier, breathing in the fragrance of thousands of different flowers laid down in respect, I was enveloped by a communal silence. Everyone stood there quietly. It was a mass reflection where words simply weren’t necessary. Behind us, there was the constant movement of people walking through the pedestrian thoroughfare, but in that exclusively quiet place, I joined strangers in silently marking our shared loss, shock and heartache.

It reminded me of the morning my father died of cancer surgery complications over three years ago, when I was left with the sense that there was a distinct and obvious Dad-shaped hole in the universe. I could feel it in the very core of my being, as if I was a tent where one of the pegs had come out, leaving me untethered from the ground. It was a hole only I could see, as life kept going on around me with people filling up their cars and heading off to the shops with their weekly grocery lists. Nobody else noticed that there was somebody clearly missing in the world.

After the siege ended and in the days and weeks that followed, the holes rendered in the universe through the unnecessary and senseless deaths of Katrina Dawson and Tori Johnson were, however, noticed by millions of people. Thousands had come to that place of mourning to take time to reflect on all that was lost on 15 December 2014. The news reported that their families who visited the flower memorial on Martin Place had apparently gained some comfort from strangers noticing the spaces, voids and holes Tori and Katrina left behind. And knowing that the lives of the other hostages would never be the same again from the blunt force emotional and psychological trauma they were put through.

Last year, thought the actions of a delusional man also known on social media as the Lone Dickhead, Sydney lost its innocence. I chose to make this amazing city home in December 15 years ago and was fortunate enough to be granted a chance to live here. I left behind a life in Johannesburg of constantly checking over your shoulder, not being sure if a bump in the night is your dog rolling over in its sleep or a burglar coming for you with a knife or gun and where a mobile phone can have more value than a life.

The tragic and viscerally disgusting events at Sydney’s Lindt Café were, however, a wake up call for everyone. It was a reminder not to take our freedom for granted. To be thankful that we have an outstanding standard of law enforcement made up of highly trained professionals who all ‘dickheads’ should be petrified of if they know what’s good for them. And not to accept the love we have in our lives without appreciating the person who is offering it to us as family, friends, workmates or just the person who stands aside graciously to let you pass by in the grocery aisle.

Australian’s laid flowers at Martin Place to honour the victims of the Lindt Cafe siege. 

For, as I later wrote about the impacts of my dad’s passing, “death is a bombshell that each and every one of us will face if we love anyone at all. But nothing prepares you for the sucking back of the air, the noise of loss and the full force of the blast of no more and forever”. No amount of flowers, candles or tears will bring those who matter to us back.

So go and say I love you to the ones you do. Thank them for the joy their bring to your life. Know they make up your universe and that their loss will leave holes that will never be filled.

Grazia Pecoraro is an inclusion and diversity consultant living in Sydney Australia with an Honours degree in Communications majoring in English and Journalism (University of Johannesburg). She has completed a memoir to mark the idiosyncrasies of growing up with a Southern Italian father. She has been published on Role Reboot and combines her passion for writing with her love of dogs and dog training through her www.pedadoggy.com blog.