Earthquake

All day I have had waves of emotions. Five years ago...a half a decade ago everything changed. January 12, 2010. About 5:12 PM. 45 seconds. Nearly two million dead. My family alive. GOD WHAT AM I SUPPOSE TO DO?????

Unable to put two thoughts together in my head without the thought 'earthquake' slipping it's sting into my heart. I remember thinking "How can these people just continue with their day?" I felt like I was bleeding out and no one noticed. After the first week came and went CNN had other disasters to cover. But I was stuck. Because it wasn't over for the millions of people who were left injured, homeless, hungry and thirsty. 

Now I can still feel the ache but it seems almost like a dream or  a book I read or a movie I saw. 

This grief drives me back to her. I long to again see the beauty that Haiti was and is and is becoming. 

The rubble is mostly gone. The tent cities replaced by semi-permanent tent neighborhoods with small gardens planted beside the concrete floor and canvas walls and  tin or canvas roofs. Beautiful ceramic tile mosaics replace broken down walls. An entire water front street is paved with mosaics.

I am proud of Haiti. In some ways, maybe many ways she is better than she was before the earthquake.

 I was not in Haiti on that fateful day in 2010. But I was. On my first trip there I often said that
"It would not fit in my carry on so I left half of my heart in Haiti."I don't ever want to be the person who shows up and does a few good deeds and goes home. I want to be a grandmother to twelve children who call me "Nana". 

But tonight I can not think of Haiti without crying. The grief is still very close. The fear of  knowing that we have no promises that it wont happen again. But there is peace in knowing  in that 45 seconds God was there. God is still there.  But time will always be measured in "before earthquake" and "after earthquake". 

Today my heart and prayers go out to all the people of Haiti.