Trying to Comprehend the Disaster

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Today’s Blog Post


Trying to Comprehend the Disaster

It is starting to happen deep within me. I think the first realization of how terrible it is – started this morning as the announcer on TV was speaking.

A bull dozer was carrying a whole bucket full of Moms, Dads, Aunties, Uncles, Sons, Daughters to the pit that had been dug for the dead. The words flowed easily from the announcer’s mouth, “Mass graves of 5000 bodies….” That was not one grave – but rather mass graves – in the plural.

Estimations now are that at least 50,000 people are dead. That is the conservative estimate – only. It could well be much higher than this number.

Unlike the Tsunami of South East Asia, the Haitian Horror following the earthquake, they are not even recording the bodies that are cast into the open pit. There is no possibility that later the relatives might be able to identify their loved one. The fact is that whole families are gone. No one is left at all.

Now the reports say that the next level of crisis is potentially about to take place. Without clean water and clean surroundings added to the already wounded and badly crushed bodies – there will be far more deaths taking place. Perhaps even more could die than did in the initial earthquake.

I tried to bring these facts to my street and my city.

In the initial quake the equivalent to the entire city of Peterborough died in a very short few minutes as the buildings fell on them. In the next few days another equivalent to Peterborough will possibly die without clean water.

The bulldozers could well scoop up all the folk from my street in one bucket full. And then in one simple push our bodies would arrived one on top of the other to the pit. If my kids survived the horror, they will have a mound of earth indicated where we ‘might be’ lying… but no one will know.

When Haiti recovers it will be years before the countries mental health will recover or stabilize.

I am overwhelmed by what I am seeing. I cannot digest it at all. I cannot process what I have received. It is too large to cope with. I realize that my system is shutting down slowly with the impossible task of even coping with what I know now.

I think today of the Soldiers and Marines – the World Military personnel that will have to cope with what they see and smell. God help them to do what they can. And help me not to withdraw.

Controversy over Proroguing Canadian Government, Noisy Liberals, Committees of treatment of Afghanistan Prisoners in Canada seems so very unimportant now. Even the Winter Olympics in Canada have lost its lustre in light of what has happened.

It is like planning a wonderful holiday and having your suitcases packed and ready to go. Then someone close to you passes away very suddenly… the world changes in a heart beat. The normal world will not be real anymore. Flying away to a warm winter retreat is just so stupid!

Some how my world has changed and will not likely be the same.

That happened one day in 2001. It was a Tuesday morning and I was just finishing a conversation with my doctor in his office. My cell phone rang and my daughter asked if I had seen the TV that morning. She had just witnessed the first airplane go through the building in New York. Her shaky voice told me how shook up she was by what she had seen.

My world changed from that few minutes on…. The way it did this week when I saw the first few photos coming to the TV screen at 7 AM.

I must maintain my own spirit through this upheaval of disastrous reporting. I must.

Some one reminded me again... that in the last days there would earth quakes… lots of them.

Today I must get a hold on me and move forward. I must. How about you? How are you coping?

~ Murray Lincoln ~
http://www.murraylincoln.com/