It was the message Otago Muslim Association chairman Mohammed Rizwan shared with about 150 people at the live screening of the National Remembrance Service in the Dunedin Town Hall yesterday.
"Our hearts are filled with insurmountable pain, deep sadness, anger and shock.
"But slowly, the wounds will heal. We will ease back into the routines of our daily lives.
"Sadly, it will become all too easy to forget the lost ones, to become disconnected from the victims. It's human nature.
"So I urge myself, and you, to try to not succumb to this, to remember the victims not simply as the number 50, but as individuals, as members of our whanau.
"Make an effort to learn about the lives they lived, talk to their loved ones, learn and maybe share a joke or a story they told."
Dr Rizwan was one of many Dunedin leaders who spoke before and after the live screening of the Remembrance Service in Christchurch's Hagley Park.
