An obscenely joyful Christmas

I forgot about the tsunami.

I was enjoying the Christmas holiday yesterday with Anita and the kids, feeling grateful for my family and a tad sad that I wasn’t able to shower them with material goods to the extent that I’d have liked, when I signed into Facebook and saw my friend Nikki Motson’s status update:

In Remembrance ~ For the rest of my life I will remember December 26th as the day hundreds of thousands of people vanished into the ocean. As the waters came rushing forth, my friends and I were spared, safe while snorkeling off the coast of Thailand between the tiny Koh Rok islands. It’s impossible to predict when chance will change your life forever. Peace to all those who lost loved ones in the tsunami of 2004.

Nikki's reminder about the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami of December 26, 2004, that killed 230,000 men, women and children in 14 countries put everything in a decidedly different perspective for me.

As if the magnitude-9.1 quake off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, wasn’t enough, it spawned towering waves up to 98 feet high that engulfed coastal communities and caught people by surprise. An unbelievable 130,736 human beings were confirmed dead in Indonesia alone; an additional 35,322 died in Sri Lanka, 12,405 died in India, and 5,395 lost their lives in Thailand. These are confirmed deaths; estimates are much higher. Almost 46,000 were missing and almost 1.7 million were displaced by the disaster.

Although terrible things have happened since 2004, this remains one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history.

A village in Sumatra, Indonesia after the tsunami

I remember watching a news clip of a new mother in the Aceh province of Indonesia who lost her baby and couldn’t speak, couldn’t catch her breath, couldn’t even answer an interviewer’s questions because the raging waters had literally yanked her blanketed infant from her arms and took it away. I felt such pity for her, to have experienced such horror, to have her life destroyed, her spirit killed in seconds by the merciless force of nature. I couldn’t imagine what she must have felt, the terror, the desperation, the numbing despair. One minute you’re struggling to protect and hold onto that which is most precious to you in the world; the next you’re screaming as your son or daughter is stolen from you, floating away with debris, and nothing else will matter, ever.

I wonder if this young woman still commemorates Ramadan, when Muslims refrain from eating and drinking in order to learn patience, spirituality, humility and submissiveness to God. I wonder if she still believes in God. I wonder if she still lives.

It’s interesting how we’re brought together as people by these occurrences – this and September 11 and the Haitian earthquake and the madman in Norway and the Japanese earthquake and the school massacre in Beslan, Russia – and for a time we feel closer, more empathetic, more compassionate toward our neighbors on Planet Earth...and then the feeling of commonality fades, the differences in language and culture and economic status and skin color and politics and religion become significant again and we turn away, refocus on what matters only to us, to the people in our homes, our immediate circles.

Why does it take evil and tragedy to bring us together, and why don’t we stay that way?

My Christmas was almost obscenely joyful, relatively speaking.

A woman mourns the death of her relative in Cuddalore, 

112 miles south of the southern Indian city of Madras, 

on December 28, 2004. REUTERS/Arko Datta.