Rewind about a four days. Back to Christmas Eve.
The morning news service told the tragic stories of two
fatal car accidents here in Victoria. In the first a family was torn apart when their speeding 4WD rolled near
Ballarat. The mother and her fourteen-year-old daugher where killed. The father is still in hospital in a
critical condition. The only passenger
to survive unscathed was the eight year old daughter, now without a mother and
sister.
In a separate accident, a carload of teenage friends slammed
into a pole killing two teenage passengers.
Usually- I am ashamed to admit- I am not overly affected by the news of road trauma. It seems that I hear about them so often, that they fail to register much feeling within me. It’s terrible, but I have become a tad insensitive to the melancholy of road trauma. Particularly when you hear it was due to reckless speed of drunkenness.
But those two accidents really stirred up my emotions. I was rather pensive, thinking about how much I was looking forward to Christmas, and spending some time with laughing, talking and enjoying much revelry and fine festive fare with my family.
The same could not be said for the families mentioned in those news reports as I drove to work on Christmas Eve. That comparison saddened me.
Then later on Christmas Day, as my family and I started to feel the effects of our gastric excesses, I heard another news report that struck me: A father and two uncles had drowned when they tried to save their 12-year-old relative (who also drowned) during a family Christmas trip to a western Victoria national park. Four family members died in that one incident.
So in the space of those two days, whilst I was enjoying the company of my family, two other families had been so tragically ripped apart. Those events made me feel very special, very humble and very lucky.
It was just the jolt I needed, as another Christmas passed with many people that I realised I take for granted.
But nothing compared to what has happened in Indonesia yesterday. I don’t really know what to say about it. What can you say about it?
Australians who have survived tell their stories here and here . And Cameron Riley pointed me to another first hand account. One of my favourite bloggers was also caught up in the tsunami. And now there are reports that a player from the Melbourne Football Club is missing; he was in Phuket on his honeymoon…
I don’t really know how I feel today. I am saddened by all
of these tragic events, doleful over the loss of so many people in Indonesia (it is now nearing 9/11 proportions), and mournful
for the all families affected. Somehow I
just can’t comprehend it all, let alone reconcile it with what was one of the
happiest, most delightful Christmas periods for me. I enjoyed the company of family; entertaining them in my home, surrounded by my possessions.
It's a lesson in humility to think that at the same time as I was smiling, so many people lost their families, their homes and their possessions.
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