がんばって！

I've mentioned it in other places at other times, but it's relevant to repeat again. I keep regular contact with people from all over the world--mostly from Asia. When anything happens... earthquakes, tsunami, erupting volcanoes, hurricanes, violent sociopolitical uprisings, etc, a list starts running in my mind with names and faces of people I care about in the affected area. My heart is spattered across the world and I know it's in the right place. This was absolutely true last Thursday night. I was lazing in an armchair. Tired, but too agitated to go to bed. The news was droning on the TV.
"Just before we go to commercial break we have breaking news of a massive earthquake in Japan. We'll try to get more info--"
I had turned off the TV and run down the hall in about four seconds. I figured that if it was significant to be called 'massive', considering Japan's earthquake history, and was on my local news station... yeah. Probably not a good sign. And that list was instantly piling up in my brain.

I bet I had about 15 tabs open. NHK World stream, Aljazeera, Twitter, Facebook, CNN, on and on. Twitter timeline flying by and the helicopter footage of that wall of water swallowing land and everything on it. Horrifying.

Almost a week later, I'm lucky. Everyone I know is safe and accounted for. But I can't stop thinking about those wiped-out cities and the thousands of missing. There really aren't accurate words for how gut-wrenching that is. More like soul-wrenching. Ugh.

If I keep dwelling on this right now I'll either start crying again or ranting about how irresponsibly poor American news media is handling their reporting. Neither is constructive. So, I'll stop. Time to keep donating and praying for Japan.

あめふるときにはきみのかさになろう
かぜふくときにはきみのかべになろう
どんなに…やみのふかいよるでも
かならずあすはくるから...