the beginning...

Whenever I think of the tsunami, I cry, so I've been crying a lot these past several days.

The lost lives, the hopelessness, the fear, the loss...its magnitude is as hard to conceive of as it is the size of the universe. How big is it? It's never ending, it never stops, and this is the same.

Incomprehensible.

On tv last night, I saw a woman going from morgue to morgue, from body bag to body bag, looking for her brother. When she was asked where she found her strength, she replied 'I don't know, you just do what you have to do'. I understand that. That understanding is what makes me impatient with people who sob and cry and claim they can't deal with whatever it is life has handed over, cuz fact is, they CAN, so quit yer whining.

This though...this is different.

I'm not so harsh about this.

There are women on the beaches, waiting for their children to come home from the sea. At what point will they give up hope, when hope is all that's keeping them alive right now? And with hope gone, how will they live? That's where human nature excels though, because they will live on, despite their grief.

What confuses me is how this has brought up shit years gone by. I cried about my sisters last week, and did it again last night. For the first time ever, I went to their grave site, number 122B, Catholic section E, and there's nothing there to show they once lived. A small plaque marks the plot, but it doesn't mark *them*. It's sad.

And apparently I'm on a roll because then I cried for my long ago cat, Coby. I felt so bad for...I don't know why I felt bad. For leaving her? I don't get it though. That was ten years ago and I cried like it was yesterday.

I don't understand grief.