So on and off all day yesterday and into the night, I watched YouTube and television footage of the devastation in Japan. Then I sat down and wrote my blog for the day about my most embarrassing moment as a teenager. Go figure. My facebook page is filled with people talking about Japan. My husband and I are talking about Japan. I actually asked him if he'd heard about the nuclear reactor and showed him footage of the wave of debris as if he hadn't been tuned in all day himself. It kept bothering me that I didn't write about what was really important. Why did I do that?
On top of that, my son was sick again yesterday and was up all night. By midnight, we had done everything we could but he still sat there moaning on the couch. And what was I doing? I was laughing out loud while reading my Cake Wrecks book. He was so offended, poor kid. I wasn't trying to hurt his feelings.
I should have sat there holding his hand like a good mom, looking worried and compassionate. I did that for the first couple of hours until I'd done everything I could. He was watching a movie I'd seen a half a dozen times, so I picked up my book, frustrated to be able to do nothing more to help him. And the Cake Wreck book is funny. Jen Yates sweetly analyzes all of those messy, illiterate, and misguided cake designs made by professionals. My husband sat on the couch and did everything I should have been doing, holding my son's hand, being compassionate, watching the movie with him. I didn't mean to hurt my son's feelings. I tried to tell him I was only laughing at my book.
I do that sometimes, laugh when I should be serious. At other times, I have absolutely no sense of humor when I should. It stinks to be so human.
So I'm just glad that I don't have any Japanese readers to see that I could write something silly when they have these horrible things happening in their country. Still, it bothered me all night, the fact that I didn't even acknowledge their pain and devastation. I tried to justify myself by saying that there was nothing I could say that hadn't already been said. What good would it do to write about it?
This morning, I woke up knowing the answer. The Japanese should hear our cry of anguish over their plight in the very clouds themselves. I read about a study once that proved that people don't have the capacity to grieve over the loss of 100,000 people, but can rally when they see just one face. That must be why I kept looking at the people in all that tsunami footage, wondering if the guy in the little white car driving desperately uphill from the debris made it out, feeling the fear of the office worker trying to catch a single monitor when the entire room was coming down around her, wondering if a someone at the nuclear reactor might question whether he should stay and help prevent catastrophe or flee as far and as fast as he could go, gathering his wife and children as he went. I think people also have a limit to how much anguish they can take in and after that it becomes surreal. I heard it described that way by a friend of mine who had just lost her mother. She and her family were still laughing.
I may not have anything to say that hasn't already been said about Japan, but here I am, my small voice adding to the din to them to tell them they are not alone. And as soon as my son wakes up, I will apologize for laughing at my book when all he needed was to see my worry over the anguish in his face. But I can't promise him that I'll never laugh again.
Thank you for listening, jb
On top of that, my son was sick again yesterday and was up all night. By midnight, we had done everything we could but he still sat there moaning on the couch. And what was I doing? I was laughing out loud while reading my Cake Wrecks book. He was so offended, poor kid. I wasn't trying to hurt his feelings.
I should have sat there holding his hand like a good mom, looking worried and compassionate. I did that for the first couple of hours until I'd done everything I could. He was watching a movie I'd seen a half a dozen times, so I picked up my book, frustrated to be able to do nothing more to help him. And the Cake Wreck book is funny. Jen Yates sweetly analyzes all of those messy, illiterate, and misguided cake designs made by professionals. My husband sat on the couch and did everything I should have been doing, holding my son's hand, being compassionate, watching the movie with him. I didn't mean to hurt my son's feelings. I tried to tell him I was only laughing at my book.
I do that sometimes, laugh when I should be serious. At other times, I have absolutely no sense of humor when I should. It stinks to be so human.
So I'm just glad that I don't have any Japanese readers to see that I could write something silly when they have these horrible things happening in their country. Still, it bothered me all night, the fact that I didn't even acknowledge their pain and devastation. I tried to justify myself by saying that there was nothing I could say that hadn't already been said. What good would it do to write about it?
This morning, I woke up knowing the answer. The Japanese should hear our cry of anguish over their plight in the very clouds themselves. I read about a study once that proved that people don't have the capacity to grieve over the loss of 100,000 people, but can rally when they see just one face. That must be why I kept looking at the people in all that tsunami footage, wondering if the guy in the little white car driving desperately uphill from the debris made it out, feeling the fear of the office worker trying to catch a single monitor when the entire room was coming down around her, wondering if a someone at the nuclear reactor might question whether he should stay and help prevent catastrophe or flee as far and as fast as he could go, gathering his wife and children as he went. I think people also have a limit to how much anguish they can take in and after that it becomes surreal. I heard it described that way by a friend of mine who had just lost her mother. She and her family were still laughing.
I may not have anything to say that hasn't already been said about Japan, but here I am, my small voice adding to the din to them to tell them they are not alone. And as soon as my son wakes up, I will apologize for laughing at my book when all he needed was to see my worry over the anguish in his face. But I can't promise him that I'll never laugh again.
Thank you for listening, jb
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