Struggling to get through

By Melissa Meehan
LIFE for many after the Black Saturday bushfires has been hard.
For those who lost their homes, family and friends it has been a struggle to get their lives back on track.
Some lost livestock, sheds and equipment.
Others will never recover from the violent flames that ravaged the area from Yarra Glen to Marysville.
Many have shared their stories; some will never be ready to.
Steels Creek resident Carolyn Kelmar did not lose her home, but she lost sight in one eye, her hay sheds, a season’s worth of hay, cattle and her front fences.
One could even say she has lost her livelihood.
This was just another hurdle for Ms Kelmar who was severly injured in a tractor accident several years ago.
Since the fire, the keen horse rider, who was hoping to make it to the Australian Paralympic team, said she has lost her ability to ride.
“I’m not sure whether it’s just psychological or the heat that affected me – it was pretty hot,” she said.
“For some reason my brain has gone really strange.
“But I’m plugging away, hoping it will come back to me.”
Ms Kelmar made headlines when she was rescued from her Steels Creek property by two policemen who drove through the fires to get to the car she was seeking refuge in.
Huddled under a blanket beside her cat Shadow on Black Saturday, Ms Kelmar never thought she was going to die.
After seeing more than $40,000 worth of hay burn around her, she focused her mind on realising her dream.
“I was going to sell the hay to go to Kentucky for the Disabled World Championships for dressage,” Ms Kelmar said.
“So I just focused on ways to get over there.”
But Ms Kelmar’s dream was not realised. After the fires she could not return to her home for four months, which made it difficult to train for team trials.
“I guess I’ll never know whether I could have made it,” Ms Kelmar said.
“Even though I have one of the best horses in the world.
“But to be able to train with the best, it would have been nice.”
She described days and weeks after the fires as blurring into one memory.
“I don’t think I changed my clothes for three weeks,” she said.
“Not because I wanted to be in the same clothes but because I, like everyone else, was in a state of confusion.”
For now, Ms Kelmar is making most of what is left.
“I can’t keep cattle because my fencing hasn’t been finished,” she said.
“I’ve lost most of my vision in one eye and to top things off a new law is stopping me from building my hay sheds where they were.
“They wonder why we can’t move on – but they won’t let us.”