A Blank Spot in a Brown Landscape

This week I talked to an old friend who, like us, had been building a dream life in another town.
After more than a decade and a half of working in the Outback, she and her partner had moved to the beautiful west coast of the Eyre Peninsula (downbythesea.blogspot.com).

She left in September, he finished up in December, and the bushfires hit in January.

They lost it all.
Every new paint scheme, every just-planted vegie, every cup and brick and momento of their whole damn life together.
They hadn't even unpacked the boxes and it was all gone - just a "blank spot in a brown landscape"

She talked to me about the bravery and the generosity of the people around her.
I was struck by her own bravery.
But she told me "it's just stuff, I've got my family - we can replace everything else".

So - because I can't really help her or all the other people affected by this close-to-home disaster and all the other ones in distant corners of the world I hear about every day - I'm going to keep my trap shut about having to turn my life upside down again and I'm just going to enjoy my family and my Home Town of beautiful, generous, giving people and the little bit of heaven that we, luckily, can still enjoy and build on back in the Flinders Ranges.

I heard yesterday that so many Australians have donated goods and food that the towns that have been struck by the fires can't even accept anymore stuff.
In our little town of 4500 people, there's so much stuff been donated that it's filled a house, a car, three trailers, a shed and a truck.

While taking photos for my newspaper I saw a box of maybe a $1000 worth of Action Man figures that a little boy had collected together and labelled "I hope some little boy can play with these - from Zach". I watched another girl, a teenager quietly strap a handfull of her own GameBoy games to a donated GameBoy and silently slip it into the pile.
They're going to have to auction it all off locally and send cash just to get it to the people in time to help because the aid agencies are so swamped.
They're talking about taking a bus down in one of the off-shifts and ferrying local guys down there on their days off to help rebuild the towns and farms and faciliteis.

SongBird - if we can't send anything to really help, I hope you at least know that we're sending our love.
Hey, and while you can't replace what you had, at least when you look out around you, you know that in a few months it will all be green and beautiful again.
That's the great thing - good things always come back around in life.