Bondi massacre 'will redefine' iconic suburb

It's the quiet that moves Isabelle Cooper.

The normally bustling shopping precinct was literally a ghost town on Monday morning.

Westfield Bondi was closed for business. It's a crime scene. Police tape surrounds it and officers swarm the area.

Ms Cooper has returned for the first time since April 13's horrific stabbing massacre where six people - five women and one man - lost their lives. She finds it eerie.

"My boyfriend said it feels like a zombie apocalypse and it does" she said.

Her sister was at the mall when it happened. She had been there hours before.

"I get shivers walking past," she said.

She used to go to Westfield daily. And while she is shaken she is determined to go back.

How one of Australia's most iconic suburbs rebounds remains a mystery.

Thousands visit the mall daily to do everything from shopping to dining to working out. Aside from the beach it is Bondi's most well-known landmark.

A floral tribute for the victims is steadily growing by the day.

Bianca Manning has come to lay flowers with her two young children. She's lived in Bondi her whole life.

"It's my backyard," she said through tears. "It doesn't happen here. You would never think it could happen here."

Ms Manning heard the sirens on Saturday afternoon and thought it was odd. It was only later she realised the full horror.

Initially she didn't tell her eight-year-old son what had happened. But she's been up and down, crying a lot so eventually she explained.

"I keep putting myself in the shoes of the mother and thinking what I would have done," she said.

"You play it in your head what she must have been feeling in those last minutes."

The mother Ms Manning is talking about is 38-year-old Sydney osteopath Ashlee Good.

Ms Good was pushing her much-longed for child, Harriet, in a pram around the shopping centre, when she was stabbed along with her nine-month old daughter.

Before she died she passed Harriet to strangers for safety, an act that likely saved her daughter's life.

A fundraiser to support Ms Good's daughter, who remains at Sydney Children's Hospital, has raised almost $150,000 in less than 24 hours.

A psychologist from Prince of Wales Hospital Eleni Tsoukalas, now stationed at Bondi Junction, said people would be experiencing a range of emotions.

"At the moment they are going through the shock, the grief, the anger," she said.

"There is no end limit to it," she said.

"Over time the shock wears off and people might not reach out for help for another week or two, everybody deals with things differently. It could be ongoing.

"The important thing is to try and keep routine, try and get out."

Shop owners remain concerned about the long-term impacts on trade. Amelia Rose runs Play Studio.

Usually the studio is filled with mums and bubs for drop in music, art and dance classes. But for their morning classes only a handful have showed up. This afternoon there are no bookings.

"I understand as a mother you might be scared to come into the Junction seeing police around but we just want to let everyone know it can be healing to come together as a community...We don't need to hide at home, it is absolutely safe here."

But down at Bondi's iconic beach the crowds are unafraid. The beach is packed.

Local Ann Armstrong said she came down to the beach as an "active meditation".

"I keep thinking about what happened all the time," she said.

"I need to clear my head." She remembers Saturday clearly.

Her teenagers were coming home from fishing. She feared they might have popped into the Westfield on the way back.

There were frantic texts exchanged with her husband as helicopters hovered above their house.

Ms Armstrong said she hoped the tragedy would lead to people being "a little kinder".

"Sometimes in the Eastern Suburbs it is rush rush rush," she said.

"Everybody is in their own world."

At the local Catholic Church down the road from Westfield, Father Ninian Doohan, a visiting Scottish priest, is reflecting on the long-term impact of the tragedy.

He is offering pastoral support for many who are clearly shaken. The Sunday mass was full.

Some wiped away tears in their eyes. They knew the victims.

"Bondi is such an iconic part of Sydney and everybody feels it has impacted them directly even if they were nowhere near Westfield," he said.

"The reaction is very personal. It is not distant at all." One mother told him: "It touches who you are".

Fr Doohan knows how collective trauma could manifest.

Dunblane is in his diocese in Scotland. The town is where the 1966 shooting massacre occurred where 16 pupils and one teacher died at the local primary school.

He described April 13 as Bondi's 'Dunblane' moment.

"We have to accept this tragedy and the horror of it is going to become a fixation for a long time and some times the association people might have with this area is going to be first the beach and then immediately a reflection on what happened on Saturday, April 13, 2024."

"The name becomes synonymous. But it also becomes synonymous with all the good that comes out of the tragedy."

He urged people to spend some time in silence in the church which is open all day.

"The silence will bring clarity to your own thoughts and that silence will bring an authentic answer from God," he said.