25/05/2026
National Sorry Day
"It is a day that you imagine the footprints left behind by a child that is then filled by a different footprints in the sand of an adult. Not a worn footprint but a new footprint returning sometimes to what they once lost. It is a day of remembrance where grief flows like a river through the community.
Mothers wait for the creak of the door that once held a small hand on the worn, twisting k**b. They do not recognise who now comes in the door. Sometimes that door does not creak again in the same way.
Sorry Day passes on grief. It does not pass on values of warmth in a house now lost. It doesn’t pass on how to knit or weave by watching your grandmother’s hands. It doesn’t pass on how to prepare a damper, helping to knead the flour and butter with your mother. It doesn’t pass on how to stop a cough in small children with lemon myrtle. It doesn’t pass on the right bait needed for fishing for yellow belly barramundi with uncle. It doesn’t share the same hazel eyes of a cousin that is missing as well.
Sorry Day is a day to remember what we had and what we never had. Every ghostly gum on country that stands is a reminder of the shadow of the children that left. The country said “Sorry” once. But for mob it continues to be sorry every day. For some families they experience children in care or incarceration being lost again today. Just as the wood is burnt in a campfire, once values are lost, they cannot be re-ignited.
On country, we all live with sorry, we all live with sadness. As the seasons change and the sands shift and the leaves fall, a new summer arrives with the bright sun of possibilities. Supporting one another is the best way to keep bonds tight. We care and hug until the trauma leaves and a person can walk themselves. We pour cups of tea until the person can boil the billy for others. We may be sorry but we still love and care for country and mob. Because I am, you are, we are Lasallian. This means, we too, feel the same emotions as one mob" - (Isaacs, K, 2023)
