Essendon, 9 AM.
A man stands at a car wash on Mount Alexander Road. Ordinary morning. Just water, sun, and routine.
Moments later — chaos. A machete. Fear. Blood.
A 43-year-old man is now fighting for his life.
The one who hurt him… gone. A dark SUV disappearing down the road.
And here we are, again — reading, watching, trying to make sense of another tragedy that shouldn’t have happened.
There’s a heaviness that lingers after stories like this.
Because no matter how far away it is, pain like that echoes.
It reaches us — through screens, through words, through the quiet of our own thoughts.
You start to realize how fragile everything really is.
How a simple morning can turn into something unrecognizable.
How someone’s father, brother, friend — can become a headline.
Leelou believes in softness — even when the world isn’t soft back.
She believes empathy is not weakness, but resistance.
When everything feels loud with fear and blame, compassion becomes an act of courage.
So maybe today, instead of turning away, we can choose to pause.
To breathe.
To send love — even to someone we’ll never meet.
Because that’s how humanity survives the noise:
through the quiet moments of care that nobody sees.
To the man in the hospital — may you feel the strength of strangers who care.
To the ones who carry fear in their chest tonight — you’re not alone.
And to all of us — may we never grow numb to the pain of others.
The world doesn’t need more indifference.
It needs people who still feel.
With love and awareness.