December 28, 2004

tsunami reality

I wish I could say that I'm weeping over the images from the tsunami's aftermath. But the truth is, I avoided looking at them for the first day or so and then cautiously opened up the articles (I read the paper online) and just kind of stared, numb. Fifty six thousand dead, they're saying. Twelve countries affected. Countless people made homeless. Devastation and destruction everywhere. How can you wrap your mind around that?

As I sit here in my cozy bedroom with the sound of the rain dropping from the roof and Damian's little voice chirpy down the hall as he lies in bed with his daddy, I may be able to intellectually conceive of such a horror but viscerally I just can't. How does it feel, the shock of earthquake, 200 times the powerful jolt we felt here during the Northridge quake, and then a huge wave hurtling toward you, do you have time to think, to fear, to pray? And how does it feel now for the survivors and the ones who will die in the next several weeks of malnutrition and disease? And how can it be such a harsh, visceral every-waking-minute nightmare reality for them and so very far away for someone like me?

Posted by Tamar at December 28, 2004 10:39 PM