TV: Tsunami the Aftermath

I watched Tsunami the Aftermath on TV last night. I didnt want to but felt compelled to. It was a dramatized version of the events which took place almost two years ago. The programme wasn't desperately good but it reminded me of the vivid TV images of the dead lined up and awaiting identification, the reports of parents who simply couldnt hold on to their children lost to the wave, of thousands of photos of happy smiling people missing injured or dead, the scenes of devastation and of home videos of the tsunami as it surged in wiping out tiny figures on the beach.
How lucky I am to be able to confine such images to the recesses of my mind, only to be recalled from time to time. How lucky I am not to have to live with such loss on a day to day basis. How lucky I am not to have been celebrating christmas on a beach two years ago. How lucky I am to have my husband and children safe, to be buying christmas presents for my babies and to be looking forward to seeing their faces on Christmas morning. My heart goes out to everyone who lost a loved one to the tsunami but particularly to those parents who lost their children and who now face the two year anniversary of that devastating day. I look at my girls this morning and I count my blessings a bit more, but I also wonder how to protect them from such an awful event happening again.

The time draws near the birth of Christ:
The moon is hid; the night is still;
The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist.

Four voices of four hamlets round,
From far and near, on mead and moor,
Swell out and fail, as if a door
Were shut between me and the sound:

Each voice four changes on the wind,
That now dilate, and now decrease,
Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace,
Peace and goodwill, to all mankind.

This year I slept and woke with pain,
I almost wish'd no more to wake,
And that my hold on life would break
Before I heard those bells again:

But they my troubled spirit rule,
For they controll'd me when a boy;
They bring me sorrow touch'd with joy,
The merry merry bells of Yule.

(from In Memoriam, XXIX)