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Ocean of Tears
Tsunami Brings Tide of Emotion
By Linda Sharp
Devastating. Staggering. Cataclysmic. The thesaurus is full of words one could typically use to describe a horrible event. However, they all seem to fall short of the mark as adjectives to describe the tsunamis of December 2004. With a death toll that is currently estimated at more than 100,000, nearly a third of that number predicted to be children, there simply are no words.
As a parent I am struck by the horror the loved ones of these children must have faced. Accounts of children laughing one moment on the shore, swallowed by the sea the next, as a parent watched helpless, unable to pull them back. Stories of babies and young ones ripped from their parents' grasp by the force of the water around them. And now the coverage of children's bodies lining morgues, beaches and mass graves, as loved ones desperately attempt to find them.
In some cases, an identification will never come as entire families, bloodlines and villages were obliterated.
It does not take a vivid imagination to look at my own children and feel the hand of terror clench my heart at the realization that there is no way I could protect them either. We like to think that in the face of mortality, we are an impenetrable wall standing between them and death. That we would lay down our lives in order to save theirs. That the power of our love somehow imbues us with a superhuman strength capable of cloaking them and keeping them from harm.
This tragedy makes every parent face a simple truth: We are human; we are frail.
I think that is what I see reflected in the faces of those parents who managed to cling to life as their children could not. Survivor's guilt, certainly, but more a visage that now recognizes its own frailty. And I wonder, as I do each time a child is taken so violently, so young, how, as a parent, do you take the next breath?
As one who believes in something bigger than myself, I can only surmise that God takes that next breath for you. And the next and the next, until the day comes that you are finally able to take them on your own. Survivors have wailed, "Where was God?" and "How could he forsake us?" as the ocean moved of its own accord. I neither believe God sent the waves, nor that he was asleep at the wheel of life. I do not believe there is some higher purpose for such a tragic loss of life.
I simply believe things happen. Good things, bad things, unspeakable things. They happen every single day. And as they occur, God – in whatever form you believe – is there waiting to accept the souls, comfort the dying and breathe for the living.
It is a raft I cling to when waves of emotion are rolling about me. It is also a life preserver I pray I never have to personally employ for my own survival. For like the people of India, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Somalia, Malaysia and the Maldives, my children are my life.
One can watch the astounding video capturing the onslaught of the waves and marvel at the power of nature. They were enormous, powerful and came without warning. Mentally we can process why so many people simply were in the wrong place at the wrong time, could not run fast enough or were just too small and swept away. But when you begin to listen to the survivor accounts in the aftermath of this earthquake and its devastation, one cannot help but marvel at the strength of the human spirit and wonder just how much stress and pain a soul can take before it, too, forever shifts and is swept away by emotions too enormous, too powerful and too instantaneous to fight.
Devastating. Staggering. Cataclysmic. I think it's time we invent some new words.
