TRANSCRIPT
Lunch service is in full swing at a small café in Sydney’s west.
It’s no ordinary café and the owners are no ordinary people. Bridget Sakr and husband Craig Mackenzie lost their daughter Veronique in a horrific car crash and last year, opened a business that’s become a safe space for people to connect and share stories.
“We've really built the business in the past 18 months since we opened. We're really happy with that. When people come into our cafe, they see family and friends from their community, they greet them, they sit together. That's really lovely to create that communal space that people enjoy.”
It’s more than just coffee and chats, though. This is a place to share more complex emotions, such as grief. Which is something Ms Sakr knows a lot about.
“Grief never goes away and it doesn't discriminate and especially traumatic grief, that shock is very much misunderstood. People think you move on, but you don't. You move with.”
Ms Sakr’s daughter Veronique along with her three cousins Sienna, Angelina and Antony Abdallah died when a drunk driver mounted the kerb outside a western Sydney golf club.
After a long campaign, the crash site will soon become a memorial to the four young victims, as Craig Mackenzie explains:
“It's a garden that basically it's under a tree where the four kids came to rest that brought them all together. There's a nice inscription around the tree on some sandstone and four plinths with their pictures and names and some words. For us, that represents, I guess the transformation of that place from a place of tragedy to a place of hope and community and forgiveness. It's a sad place, no doubt about it, but I think the garden will make it far more beautiful and peaceful and positive.”
As devout Catholics, this family actively practises the Christian concept of forgiveness.
As Ms Sakr explains, it’s helped them through the darkest of times.
“Forgiveness is really, really important. It's not easy, it's a constant process to remind yourself how important it's to forgive. That is core to our Christian faith. It's helped me to be able to have no anger, not hold that sort of hatred just to show love. And by showing love, I'm being a better mother, I'm being a better daughter, I'm being a better wife. That doesn't mean that there's no anxiety, that doesn't mean there's no post-traumatic stress because there are so many triggers when it comes to grief. You’re triggered, especially around Christmas, the emptiness of not having your daughter around you. The dinner table is never the same. Going shopping, buying gift, the love that your child gives you, there's such an emptiness, but the forgiveness helps you cope. It really does!”
Such is the strength of this couple’s faith, they recently hosted the parents of the driver serving a prison sentence for killing Veronique. Ms Sakr explains:
“If we didn't have the forgiveness in our hearts, we couldn't do that. And that's what being Christ-like is about, it's about showing compassion and mercy and openness and forgiveness to make them feel like they're welcome to come into the café.”
Called Quatre – the French word for four – the cafe honours the four young people killed four years ago, while they were walking down a suburban street to buy ice cream.
One wall is also a memorial for customers to honour their loved ones, as Ms Sakr explains.
“You come into the cafe with a photo of your loved one, and we will take a photo of you and your loved one with a Polaroid camera and you get to pin it on the wall. And it's a way of really just honouring the person you love and continuing that bond with them.”
Their message of love is keenly felt by first time customer Sue Marendy who is facing her own struggles.
“I have my own family member who is suffering from a very rare condition, only 300 in their world, six in Australia. And it's degenerative. So, for me to find a place like this to come, share my story, meet other like-minded people, I think it gives me strength to take steps and also to help others.”
Helping others is what this business is all about.
There’s a scholarship in conjunction with Veronique’s old school, Santa Sabina College, to pay for one young student to finish high school.
As well, Ms Sakr runs Heartfelt, an online prayer group that actively supports those devastated by loss.
“Heartfelt is a safe space where people come together, they get to honour their loved one. Relationships are formed, trust is built. It's meaning making - in meaning finding in your grief. There's no judgment, there's no advice or no counselling session. We're just there to hold one another in our grief, to continue the bond with your loved one, together in the presence of one another.”
As well, Mr Mackenzie is pushing for reform for the families of crash victims, through the New South Wales Road Trauma Support Group.
“We're really there to support people that have lost loved ones on the roads due to the criminal act of another person. We're there to be their voice, to be their advocate. We're there to educate people about the impact of road trauma. We've released some award-winning research recently on that. We are trying to reform the system. We are trying to work with the government to make the current laws fit for purpose around road crime, serious road crime. And there's a law reform review happening as we speak. And finally, we're about research, trying to help the community understand the impact of road trauma.”
“We're all going to suffer in some shape or form, but you're never alone. I really believe that the blessings come in many ways. And as much as it feels so hard and so tough, you're on your knees and you don't know which way to turn. I really believe that God carries us and that's how I've been able to get through what I've gotten through the love and support from family. And I think community and family and faith are very, very important. They're fundamental.”
