The Tsunami

Journal Entry Wednesday, December 30, 2004

There was a horrible tsunami that hit Sri Lanka and that area on...was it Sunday night? I believe it was. Right now the death toll is 63,000. I cannot fathom such a large number. Footage of the water coming, people being washed away...they show a hand limp under tons of broken concrete, bodies being pushed into a mass grave by a bulldozer. They think malaria and waterborne diseases will kill as many as the water did. Self, I am sick. My soul hurts. I have nightmares of running through the streets, Niko torn from my arms by water. I think about it and can barely function. And that happened to so many people! One woman lost her four children and her husband. She said she had her eight month old ripped out of her arms, and I almost couldn't bear it. They had a little boy, maybe two or so, found and taken to the hospital by two American tourists. They gave him a nebulizer with the exact same purple dinosaur facial mask that Niko had in the hospital two weeks ago, and that's what got Luke.