Thoughts

Things have washed away. Photographs, toys, books, children's drawings and their first attempts at writing the alphabet, bowls, combs, dresses, shirts, everything. I look around my cluttered apartment and I wonder how I would feel if I watched it all sweep away in a sudden rush of wild water. There's nothing I can sum up from the depths of my imagination that would compare. Nothing. Not even nightmares that have awakened me, shaking and unsure of where I am, can compare. And even the attempt to understand the feelings of one who stands ankle deep in muddy water looking at the ruin of a home once filled with life and love makes me feel very small.

In the shadow of the growing numbers I feel small.

Things have washed away, yes. But the people... the innumerable people. People who will never know the fate of their loved ones; people who will lie with nameless others in deep graves once associated with the cruelty of men, not of nature. The aged find themselves parents of babies. Children wander in search of their parents. And those who live must set aside their grief in order to rebuild.

And when the water is wrung from the houses, and the cars disentangled from the trees, then what?

Doctors Without Borders

Red Cross

Tsunamihelp Blog

Comments

[caroline]

You say it so well, Iris, thanks. The weight of the sorrow is immense. we can hope that out of this terrible destruction comes a stronger intention and effort to provide ongoing reconstruction and a wider caring for that part of the world, so much neglected.

[Em]

Whew...what Caroline said. I just can't imagine what life is like for the survivors right now.

[valentina]

Beautiful ... were it not for something so horrible.

[Kimberly]

Like you, I can't even begin to imagine what these people are enduring. I can't imagine the loss of family, livelyhood, friends, homes, and even a just the loss of feeling secure and safe.

[claudia]

Very well said.