Yesterday morning we watched the National Memorial Service For Bushfire Victims on television. 

The highly moving service began with sorrowful music and song, accompanied by the penetrating, primordial drone of William Barton’s didgeridoo. Issued with tiny finger bells, the congregation echoed the ringing of bells across the nation.

There were heart-felt speeches by political, community and religious leaders, choirs whose songs mirrored the nation’s grief, and singers who urged the congregation to sing with them. For some, singing was the last thing they felt like doing.

Along with representatives from fire-affected areas, each person who spoke or sang placed a white flower into a giant wreath in front of the stage. By the end of the service, the wreath was a mass of flowers.

It was a cathartic event: solemn and dignified at the start, life-affirming and hopeful at the end. Throughout it I cried, as millions across the nation cried.

In some fire-affected communities, with some of their numbers not yet accounted for, many people ignored the buses hired to take them to the memorial service, preferring to stay in their home towns, to grieve privately with the people they knew.

If I were in their situation, I’m sure I’d feel the same. Barely two weeks after the tragedy, I wouldn’t feel ready to take part in such a public display of grief; I don’t think I ever would.

The horrors of these fires were of such magnitude that many of those affected will find it difficult to cope for some time. Long after the media has lost interest, legions of workers will still be helping survivors come to some sort of terms with the loss of loved ones, friends, neighbours and homes. It will be a long and difficult process. 

Perhaps some survivors will take comfort in the words of Quentin Bryce, our Governor-General, when speaking directly to them she said: ‘We must allow the thoughts and images and words that have so recently scorched and swamped us to gently settle, and find their proper and worthy place in our hearts and minds… We must tend to the gaps left by those we have lost, and we must keep their smiles always in our sights.’