Picture

Though I've been seeing the devastation wrought by Ondoy since Saturday, it was only yesterday that I realized how devastating it really was. Blame it on me being desensitized by the violence and crimes that are shown daily but somehow, this cognizance hit home.

It took a picture to make me quickly call home just to hear my son's garbling, never mind if he didn't make sense. It was a picture in http://mb.com.ph/ that made me feel grief and empathy and it took a big measure of self-control for me not to empty out my bank account and give it to the flood victims. It was a picture that made me hug my son last night making him squirm from my tight embrace.

It was a picture of a two year old boy dug up from the mud after his house was buried in a mudslide Saturday morning. A man in a blue shirt was digging out a body of a two year old baby and it showed his thigh and his small white hand limp and almost closed in death.

I was haunted by images of that mud-covered thigh, thinking it might have been Basti's, or that small white hand that might have been my son's. Though I know my husband and I will do our damned best that Basti will be kept safe, I can't help my thoughts from superimposing my son's image on that small frail body.

It was a gruesome picture that I really refused to look at again after seeing it once (it did not help that I was eating my merienda when I saw that picture. For the first, I really lost my apetite). But I forced myself to look at it again and again hopefully to desensitize myself and make me appreciate my life and my blessings more. But at the back of my mind, I know that nothing will ever replace a human life and that for the mother of that baby, her life will never be the same again.

I just take refuge in the fact that he will never grow old and that he's now safe in the bosom of our Father's arms. He will not know pain or sickness and his innocence will never be marred by the evils of our society.

I pray for the victims that they'll be able to overcome this and rebuild their lives. I pray that I'll be able to help them as effectively as possible.

God help us all.