Human Suffering

For 19 years I have sat at a typewriter/computer to encapsulate the news of the day. These past few days have been some of the toughest I have ever encountered. The reason is human suffering.

I am immersed in it all day long. Not in person -- but through the alternately fabulous/wonderful technology hook-ups that allow us to see video from so many places.

Everywhere I look it is human suffering. The heartbreaking faces of desperate people. Mothers looking for a way to feed young babies and comfort crying children. Men who have lost their homes, their jobs and all their possessions save for the ones they are carrying in a pillowcase from one filthy, overcrowded place to another.

Never before in 19 years have I referred to anyone in my own country as a "refugee". Now I do it several times a day. For millions of people to hear.

I wonder why every school bus in the lower 48 states hasn't been dispatched to pluck people from the misery. I wonder why helicopters aren't dropping cases of water and food into places too difficult to reach. I wonder how anyone can watch these desperate faces and be convinced that the relief effort is going according to plan.

And so I watch this video -- write about this video -- and air this video. Hoping that someone, somewhere will help. And hoping that I never know the agony of watching a loved one suffer and die only to be left abandoned on a crowded, dirty sidewalk.

It is a national crisis. It is a national tragedy. It is a national shame.

http://www.redcross.org/