We were on the beaches that day, and in the homes, and on the roads and in the water when the earthquake and Tsunami struck.  Those of us from one country or another.  Those of us who were rich and those who were poor.  Those who were educated and those who were not.  We were there, all of us, when the big wave took over the land.  We were together.

No matter how many miles away we walked, or slept, or stood, we were there that day when the ocean cast off its boundaries and exerted its power.  It struck without preference to color, to race, to personality or profession.  Without thought of our histories, our backgrounds, our importance or lack of it.  The ocean thundered into our lives, wherever we were.

We heard about it on the radio, and witnessed it on television, and read about it in the newspapers, and we knew.  We knew what they felt while they were drowning, while they were screaming, while they were trying to save one another, while they fought for survival, while they watched loved ones die.  We felt their anguish, their pain.  Their desperation.  They were children.  Our parents.  Our husbands and wives.  They might have spoken other languages and held other ambitions, been citizens of other countries, but their tears were our tears and their pain stretched across the miles and became our pain.

There was nothing we could do but listen and watch and count the dead.  And wonder.  How did this happen to us?  To our world?   We know so much.  Certainly we have accomplished so much.  We are not the uncivilized people we once were.  Nor the uneducated.   How did we not know this could happen?  What secret had the ocean kept that it was waiting to unleash?  And for what reason?  There is always a reason, is there not?

Every day there were new stories.  Stories of courage.  People saving each other and risking their own lives.  Stories of generosity.  People giving clothes and money and whatever they could.  Stories of anguish and tenderness as the countless number of bodies were buried, one after the other.  Until we could not imagine that all at once, so many were gone.

We went about our lives during the days after.  To work.  Enjoying our families.  We shopped at the food market as we usually did. We needed to know everything continued as it was before.  That the mail would be delivered.  The neighbors wave hello.  The schools open.  We needed to know this.

But nothing really was the same, nor would it be again.  We had been reminded of our vulnerability.  In that moment in time when the earth shook, when the waters rushed over the land, we realized we were not as powerful as we thought.  We did not rule everything.  We could not threaten everything.  We could not claim victory over everything.  We realized, all of us, as if it were one thought circling the world, that we did not have control over everything.

Eventually the waters will recede and recovery will begin.  And we will all return to the separateness of our lives.

Having discovered once again, we can face whatever we must.  Together.

                                                                                       Harriet May Savitz

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