As I wrote in my profile, I try to take the stinky bits of life and find the humor in them. Sometimes you just gotta laugh to keep from crying. And sometimes, something so horrific happens that it's impossible to find any humor.
I happened to be awake, writing, with the TV muted in the background, when the initial news of the earthquake in Japan broke. I watched for hours as more and more terrifying images played on the screen. When they showed the wave of water washing over that town like a soup thick with houses, cars, boats, and debris, I was yelling, "Dear God, no!" at my TV. It was impossible to believe something so devastating was really happening and not just a special effect in an action movie.
The news and images have kept coming over the past few days and as the media have been able to reach more areas, the images are even more heartbreaking. An aerial view of what used to be a town and is now just a patchwork of stone foundations missing the homes they anchored. Parents calmly holding out their small children to be screened for radiation from damaged nuclear plants. People walking for miles and miles because either their train isn't running, their car was destroyed, or the road is so buckled that no cars can travel it, but walking despite their shock and exhaustion because they are determined to reach a home and family they hope will still be there.
There have been glimmers of hope and humanity amidst all the destruction--a friend wrote a blog telling about a woman in Japan who gathered up nineteen strangers from a train station and took them to her home where she gave them food and a warm place to rest, and hopefully a chance to feel safe for a few hours. A man was found alive, ten miles out in the ocean, clinging to a piece of the roof from his house. Offers of help and donations have poured into Japan from all around the world, proving that the citizens of earth aren't as far gone down the path of selfishness and heartlessness that a lot of media sources, books, studies, and research papers would have us all believe. We do still care about our fellow man and our heart breaks to see him suffer.
So I'm taking time off from the funny today to offer my prayers, thoughts, sympathies, and yes, money to our global neighbors in Japan. I weep for your losses and pray for miracles. You have a long, overwhelming road to recovery ahead of you and I hope you will take the hands that are being offered in friendship to help with your burden. And in the coming weeks, may you start to find some little things that make you smile, and even laugh, again.
It's hard to see all the devastation and misery and not be able to do anything about it. But all the little acts of kindness we hear about go a long way to cheering me up.
ReplyDeleteKeep spreading the word about things like this -- I will too!