There but for the grace of something I'm not even sure I believe in go I
I don't think I really got it until I saw the 48 Hours special last night. I had heard the news of course. But hearing it and seeing it... so very different.
As always these days, I can't help but look at the news with the filter of a parent's perspective. What must it be like to control young children in the midst of all that chaos? What do you do when you run out of diapers? When the 3 foods your children deign to eat aren't available and you have to try to convince overtired, frigthened children to eat what little you can find to offer at all? How do you explain what's happened to an oversensitive 3 year old who's wise beyond her years? How do you keep your family together? How do you keep them safe? It's hard to envision what the devastation would be like for my little family. I certainly can't wrap my mind around the massive number of families facing that kind of devastation right now.
New Orleans has always been on my must-see list, but I haven't managed to get there yet. I suspect it will be a good long time before I have the chance. I've sent my money in my stead, though. And as I continue with my cushy life, I hope that the people who call that part of the country home can get back to theirs some day soon.
posted by Rebecca @ 5:23 PM
5 Comments:
(Hi... we're online at the same time :))
Anyway, I barely have the news on these days. It's more for the fact that I'd rather spare my kids from seeing all of the scary images than anything else. So, I gather most of my news on the internet when they're not around (or not looking), or TV (rarely) after they're asleep. We saw part of the special last night and it really hit me then too.
The part that really hit me the most was the fact that the levees were only built to sustain a class 3 hurricane.... because it was more cost effective. Tell that to the mother that lost her child, the child who lost her parent, the wife who lost her husband, and all of the families who lost all that they possess. Because it was more cost effective.
I'm watching the news because there is no one here except the baby and me. But the kids . . . that's what haunts me, too, is the poor kids who are caught up in this. You think that in America this sort of thing doesn't happen. But it is happening. There but for the grace of God, indeed.
We'd always talked of going to New Orleans, too. We were finally going to go in November.... even had the flights booked. I can't stop watching the news broadcasts, trying to imagine how you'd possibly entertain a 2 1/2 year old during this tragedy, or if that 2 1/2 year old would even CARE at that point. No food, no water..... diseases I'd thought were extinct a new possibility. It's like a 3rd world country down there......
God bless them tonight, and every night til they are home again.
I have lost sleep trying to fathom the exact same thing... how I would keep my 11-month-old alive, how I would protect her from the heat and disease that will surely come, how I would find food to feed her and water for her and for me so I could at least nurse her... Once she goes to sleep I lie there next to her in the dark listening to her breathe and terrified that something might happen that I can't protect her from. This could have happened in some form to any of us. I think we're all holding our kids extra-close today.
You've hit the nail right on the head. Those poor families. And I understand the anger and desperation of these people - what lengths would I go to to feed my children, get them water? Where are the relief agencies? Where is the order?
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