This story is part of our Your First Published Article series. While preparing for an upcoming weekend getaway in Noosa, Australia, an unexpected phone call generates a whirlwind of chaos, leaving travelers to deal with grief as they attempt to enjoy the luxury trip they had booked.
The phone call came late in the afternoon. My husband took it. His face dropped, and his posture changed–everything in the room was suddenly still. There had been an incident. A serious one. A workplace tragedy. The details were unclear, but the shock was immediate. How could something like this happen? Workplaces were meant to be safe. Imagine going to work one day and not coming home. That call shattered our demeanour and our plans.
We were meant to be heading north. A long weekend in Noosa, booked and paid for months ago. Instead, just days before our departure, my husband and I found ourselves booking emergency flights south, to Melbourne, under the heavy weight of grief.
A close friend–more like family–had died suddenly. He had known my husband since they were both nine. He was part of our bridal party, woven into the fabric of our personal moments. And now, he is gone. We would never see him again. He was 54 years old and too young to die. He’d fallen into an empty concrete silo at a building materials company and plunged to his death from a 40-foot height. The circumstances were still unclear, leaving his family reeling and investigators circling.
Our friend had recently become a Muslim for his wife, meaning the burial would need to happen swiftly. We scrambled to find last-minute flights and accommodation in Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city in its south-eastern corner. A two-hour flight from home. We booked the flights and accommodation, still trying to wrap our heads around grief, logistics, and obligations.
And then the chaos began. Our 5 am alarm had been on silent. The flight was at 6. We jolted awake too late, barely dressed, and raced through the empty streets of the Gold Coast in an Uber that flew like a getaway car. We arrived just in time…to see the plane take off without us.
Missing the family gathering felt like a failure. We were those people you see at the airport who look like they’ve just received life-altering news, desperate to get on a plane that’s been closed off by the flight attendants. Every second stretched out as we raced against time. Breathlessly arguing with airline staff as if our lives depended on it. The flight attendants told us “no” three times, in three different ways. My husband muttered under his breath, cursing the phone being on silent. Other travellers stepped aside, sensing the urgency of our movements. We found a seat at the airport, and I frantically tapped on my phone screen looking for another flight. Somehow, we managed to find seats on a flight two hours later. Bags in hand, we went straight from the airport to the viewing.
The viewing was haunting and raw. Our friend’s wife, barely holding it together, quietly told us she was six weeks pregnant. A gift they had planned and hoped for, now paired cruelly with his absence. He lay there, wrapped in a simple white cloth, so only his face was visible. There was a sense of peace about him that contrasted deeply with the devastation.
That night, we checked into a hotel near the Melbourne Grand Prix track at Albert Park. Despite its reputation for noise and energy, the area was silent. The track lay dormant, the city sounds kept at bay. The hotel was nestled among lush green parklands, where the grounds were carefully kept with neatly trimmed grass, wide open spaces, tall trees, and a still lake. There was no traffic, no hum of nearby homes, just nature. The absence of man-made noise made the quiet feel almost unreal. A surreal hush hung in the air; it was a strange, quiet backdrop to our grief. The calmness of the landscape didn’t match the heaviness of our hearts, but it somehow gave us space to breathe. We ate dinner late, our minds heavy and our bodies empty.
The funeral was held in a mosque. We had to take our shoes off and leave them at the front door. Women entered through a separate entrance and were led into a separate room from the men. It felt disorienting, grief already creating a sense of separation, but here it was made more physical.
Inside, the women knelt quietly on the floor, shoulder to shoulder. In the adjoining room, the men stood silently. The rhythm of Arabic recitations began and carried through the walls. The service lasted around 30 minutes. The only word I could recognise was “separation” when it surfaced two to three times, each one cutting a little deeper. The hardest part was watching our deceased friend’s mother. She wept uncontrollably, and her husband, standing just metres away, but divided by a wall and tradition, could do nothing to comfort her. That moment stayed with me. The ache of being close, yet completely apart.
At the cemetery, the finality was brutal. A deep hole, a wrapped body lowered in, by the hands of family and friends, slats placed over him, and then a compact industrial dump truck of earth and an excavator pressed it down until it was flat. A small burial ceremony followed. It was a raw and physical goodbye. His family laughed and joked that he would have loved the rawness of the industrial machinery, because he loved his job and the company; he’d worked for over 30 years in the construction industry.
The wake was hosted by his employer in a Melbourne rooftop bar. People shared stories, warm and heart-wrenching. He had lived with generosity, humour, and a fierce love for his family. He was one of six children. They had maintained a quiet but constant presence in each other’s lives. His absence already loomed large.
The next evening, we returned home emotionally drained and unsure how to shift gears for what was supposed to be a relaxing long weekend away at Noosa.
And yet, we packed. The skies opened. The rain was relentless, and a two-and-a-half-hour drive stretched into a marathon. The journey was almost brought to a standstill by a bus that rolled onto the freeway; traffic was diverted and cars slowed to see the accident. It was a reminder that life is too short and to focus on what matters, letting the rest slide.
The moment we arrived at our resort, our mood changed. The beachfront property was a quiet luxury. There were no reminders and no obligations; there was only space.
Noosa is a beautiful coastal town in the State of Queensland, Australia. It’s located two hours north of Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, and not far from my hometown, the Gold Coast. Noosa is known for its natural beauty, laid-back lifestyle, and upscale charm. It’s a mix of luxury resorts, boutique shops, fancy restaurants, and eco-friendly accommodation. We had chosen an oceanfront apartment, right in the heart of town, on Hastings Street, a palm-lined street full of cafes that twinkled in fairy lights, basking in a sub-tropical climate.
It rained almost the entire time, but somehow, it didn’t matter. The balcony felt alive with visits from the local birds, such as the vibrant rainbow lorikeets, a butcher bird with its song, and a clever crow happily jumping on my arm to be hand-fed. It was as if our feathered friends were checking in on us.
We found Noosa to be chic and dreamy. A place where mornings start with an ocean swim and end with fairy-lit dinners under the stars. The buildings are all whitewashed and rendered, oozing elegance and moments made for lingering. The environment gently nudged us back to ourselves. It comprised breezy interiors with high-end finishes along a palm-lined street that leads into a eucalyptus-scented trail in a national park. We strolled along Hastings Street, through the national park, and back along the beach, where we barbecued our dinner using the onsite facilities, and rested.
It turned out that the holiday we didn’t want to take was the holiday we needed the most. It began the healing process, giving us the space to unpack emotionally and dull the sharpness of life. The relentless noise of the previous day began to quiet, and we began to heal. Healing was showing up for others, then remembering to show up for ourselves.
We went to Melbourne to say goodbye, and we went to Noosa to find a way forward. Both were necessary. Neither was easy, but in the end, both were a kind of homecoming.
