I am You.

(From Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Byline: Rina Jimenez-David

AS the number of fatalities keeps rising, the initial horror of the earthquake-tsunami disaster that has befallen South and Southeast Asian countries has turned to a numb resignation. Fourteen thousand, the initial estimate of the number of people dead from the tsunami, was mind-boggling. One hundred thousand and counting, as the official estimates now put the number of dead and missing, is just beyond imagining.

Heart-rending as the stories and survivor accounts are, and shocking as the scenes of the disaster and the rows of the dead have become, we still can't look away. One feels a compulsion to check in, to share the experience of this tragedy, to show our compassion if only by teleporting our thoughts and emotions to the places and people ravaged by the forces of nature.

Now that it's been confirmed that at least one Filipino died as a result of the tragedy, and several more Pinoys remain missing, the tsunami disaster has acquired a domestic dimension. Which makes the task of understanding its meaning, or its lessons, much more daunting. What are we to make of the number of dead, the lives destroyed, the towns and villages washed off the face of the earth? Is it possible that God is that capricious?

Here is one attempt to place the entire event within the confines of reason and feeling. Jim Paredes is better known as a performer and song writer, but he is also a person who feels deeply and finds the need to put his feelings into words. He sent the following to various e-groups and gave permission to have it reprinted for a wider audience. May these reflections help all of us face the new year with a resolve to be kinder and more human, to walk in the shoes of the other.

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