Tsunami

I'm sitting here this morning thinking about "normal". It's a 'normal' Sunday and I'm doing 'normal' Sunday things, normal laundry, normal cleaning, normal everything. And through it all at the back of my mind is my niece, who's life is anything but 'normal' right now. Sarah is in Japan. Specifically that area of Japan that just went through an earthquake measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale. That area that was just totally destroyed by a 23 foot tsunami wave. That area that they are estimating 10,000 people died in.

Sarah is lucky or blessed or both. She "normally" lives just north of a nuclear reactor that is now in partial meltdown. Thanks to an efficient Japanese government with lots of disaster planning and experience, Sarah and the people around her were evacuated much ahead of the explosion and the partial meltdown. Thanks to the townspeople at the center where she was evacuated to, she has food and blankets for warmth, and finally a way to charge her cell phone and tell her family that she's okay.

In this context, I'm struggling with 'normal' this morning. There's so much I want to do, and nothing I can do. So I'm doing the normal things, laundry, cleaning, and also periodically checking the news from Japan and the family Facebook pages for updates. And struggling with the dichotomy. My life is so 'normal' here, and the news from Japan is horrific. I have no way to imagine the anguish of my brother and sister-in-law as they waited to hear from Sarah or news of her whereabouts as more and more reports came in, as the world watched the tsunami roll over everything in it's path, as property crushed and burned and no doubt took lives with it.

Sarah is fine this morning. I find myself reminding myself of that fact over and over. I'm not religious. While I often believe in God, I don't believe in religion, in any of it's myriad forms. But I thank God for keeping Sarah safe and ask Him to watch over all the survivors in Japan and all the people rebuilding their not-so-normal, shattered lives.