My son had planned to be at Bondi. Will hate follow him wherever he goes? |
Before I say what I’m about to say, I need to tell you one thing. Which is that I, too, know the rapture that seems to spread like liquid through your chest when your toddler sits on you and declares brightly, but matter of factly: “I was going to pee on you, but then I realised – you’re my joy!”
Still, as I walked to work on Monday morning, a thought bloomed. Maybe I should never have had my three children.
Because, just the night before, on Sunday evening, I had spent hours scrolling through WhatsApp messages from Jewish friends and acquaintances on a group chat. “Have they got the shooters? My eldest daughter is there,” wrote one. This was only minutes after Naveed and Sajid Akram started shooting their long rifles aimed at Jewish people at Bondi Beach.
Mourners embrace at the Bondi memorial.Credit: Oscar Colman
Another wrote of having escaped Bondi on foot, leaving her car there, after running and hiding with her 12-year-old daughter. Yet another friend, who was at the same Hanukkah celebration with her niece, had taken her to the emergency department to remove shrapnel from the child’s head.
A family member texted to say that a colleague’s father had been murdered.
My son had planned to be there. He was getting ready to leave for Bondi with friends when he heard the news.
As Jews, we know that hate stalks us wherever we go.
So, by the next morning, after circling through the immediate, scratchy feelings of panic – what if my son had........