Today is a bit surreal. I'm not sure how life turns out the way it does but the month following Christmas is a month chock full of memorable heartaches. Our family experienced the death of my mother-in-law three years ago, after a very short battle with cancer. Two years ago, my grandfather-in-law passed away unexpectedly while at work. And one year ago, on January 12, 2010, life changed for us (and literally millions of other people worldwide) as an earthquake devestated Haiti. I know that for some, my lamenting the January 12th date will seem odd or maybe overly dramatic. But it is one of those things that has pierced my heart, where my heart is literally full of sorrow as I think about it.
January 12, 2010
It's one of those moments where I will probably always remember exactly what I was doing when I heard that there had been a massive earthquake in Haiti. It was about suppertime and the tv was on, randomly set at some channel. No one was really watching it. D and I were wandering around the house, working on various things. And I have no idea where Kenson was. (Please celebrate my amazing parenting skills!) Just by chance, I walked through the living room and happened to hear the news reports. And from then on, life was a bit upside down. The intial reporting was very conservative in the reports of the number of dead. I remember saying to D that there is no way the death toll will be that low. Port au Prince is too crowded. The housing is too unstable. My first thoughts were not really of my daughter. There were of a country that was as ill prepared as any country might be to deal with a horrific natural disaster. Of course, Conleigh did come to my mind later, and we spent two weeks on the phone for hours at a time, trying to figure out what was going on.
The last few days have brough media attention back to Haiti. I'm surprised at how difficult it has been for me to watch. And I am so aware of how insignificant my own feelings of sadness and despair are compared to so many others who live and work in Haiti.
More than anything, I think it has cemented in me a belief that I am connected to the birth country of my children. Unfortunately, it is easy to walk away from the country and people who make up parts of the inner fabric of who my kids are. I don't live there. I don't have to deal with the realities of life there. It's like anything else; it can be easy to look the other way. But for some reason, this earthquake has meant a kinship that I'm not sure I can explain. Yes, those feelings were there before but for some reason they are stronger, more emotional. I know I have said this before, but the faces of those people are not random faces. They are the faces of my children. In the case of one documentary that is being aired on Hulu, they are the faces of kids I have seen and held and talked to in person.
For both of my kids, we do not know anything about their birth families. Neither family has reported in with the orphanages since the quake. There is a really good chance that Conleigh's mom is okay as she lives outside of Port Au Prince. Kenson's mom? I do not know. There were so many dead and so many injured in life transforming ways.
Take a moment or two to watch the television coverage of Haiti today. Take a moment to watch the documentary I mentioned earlier. (It's actually filmed at Kenson's orphanage and details their attempts to meet the needs of the children in the days after the earthquake. The video link is below. It's about an hour long.) Just take a moment and pray for healing, stability, renewal, and vision for a country that needs it.
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