I can only speak for myself.

Any comments I have made on the tsunami, except for a brief exchange here with Larry about the aid squabble, have been to people who live in my town who are natives of India, to ask them about their families. It seemed more useful and pertinent.

Something about the numbers is just overwhelming to me.

In my local news, my dad was diagnosed, suddenly, with terminal cancer. This was his last New Year. My 13-year-old's best friend's dad was taken to hospice the day after Christmas, and she has spent the entire week, more or less, sleeping over there to keep her friend and her friend's sister company. (She and three other kids brought a small New Year's party to the hospice for the girls, with parental connivance. But that's another story.) And a member of my library's board, who was also part of local government and heavily involved in several other non-profits, suddenly dropped dead, also on the day after Christmas.

It's been an awful, awful week. I'm numb, kiddo. Sensitivity to the masses of humanity whom I don't know pales next to the pain of the individuals whom I do.

I'll give blood and money. That's about all I have that can help. Expressions of sympathy are very nice, but words are just words. If the Mennonite Central Committee sends out a call for some of their "disaster kits" (lists of items that they package for emergency relief, such as soap, bleach, bandages, etc.), maybe I can come up with some of those, but at the moment, they prefer money too. It's more portable, and they can use it to buy supplies closer to the area of need, thus cutting down on the overhead needed to transport things.

The outward face is not always indicative of the whole life.