There is no escaping the suffering of those injured in the Bourke Street horror, nor the grief of those who have lost loved ones. Words cannot erase their pain but sometimes they can provide a perspective that gives the rest of us something to go on with.
Last Saturday, the words were supplied by Henry Dow, 24, a third-year law student at the University of Melbourne. The previous day he was in the city, having just attended a meeting as president of the Melbourne university law students' society, when a car shot past on the opposite footpath. He thought that his mind was playing tricks on him. Then his surf lifesaver training kicked in. Picking the gap between the chasing policemen, he ran across the road to a terribly injured woman.
The following day on Facebook, Henry published an account of what then occurred. "I write this not for sympathy (I'm fine); I just wanted to share a story that might otherwise be lost." And what a story it was. How, in the moment of crisis, with injured people strewn about and gunshots sounding, the person who knew what to do and was able to provide real leadership was a humble taxi driver called Lou.
Henry Dow's account of the experience has exceptional power. Without wasting a syllable, he recorded the fragments of the experience as they flew at him, an experience that at the time of writing still struck him as surreal. I contacted him by phone this week. It would be too much to say I interviewed him. He agreed to a short conversation. I asked him some questions, he answered them.
He's from Barongarook in the Otways. His father was a palliative care worker, his mother a midwife and accident emergency nurse. He went to a Catholic school in Colac. He doesn't practise as a Catholic but he did take away from the faith that "it's not up to us to judge".
In December 2011, Henry and another teenage volunteer lifesaver, Reece Karacsay, saved four Colac schoolies from drowning at Wye River beach. Henry paddled out on a board, rescued two swimmers, then, seeing a third in the water nearly unconscious, rescued him also. The Colac Herald quoted Henry as saying, "We were caught right in a rip so I secured them all to my board and all we could do was wait for a little bit while I kept them calm, and then we were able to get out."
Henry has also worked "for years" at the Portsea Children's Camps or what was formerly known as the Lord Mayor's Camps. He says the backgrounds of some of the children he has worked with have been "indescribable".
Last Saturday morning, he was "still pretty shaken" but, when he thought about the previous day's events, "Lou stuck out for me." That's why he posted on Facebook. "I was just hoping someone might read it who would know someone and Lou would be acknowledged for what he had done."
I didn't read it. I heard it watching a telecast of Monday's ceremony in Federation Square. To reduce his words to a neat summary would be to dilute their power and blur the remarkable clarity of his message. His account gave me a much better idea of what occurred than any TV footage or report. At the same time, based precisely on his experience, he argued for a positive view of human nature. All in 527 words, every one of which appeared in the right place at the right moment.
We don't hear many great speeches in this country. That was one of them.
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