Thursday, May 15, 2008

My Baby

Today I walked down the stairs of the subway en route to pick up Benjamin after work. I'm going into week two of a crummy sinus infection and work continues to drain the joy out of me these days.

I walked by the magazine stand on the platform and glanced at all the gossip magazines that seem to rule our culture. Don't people get bored sucking in all that garbage? I take it too seriously.

I looked over and saw the front of the New York Times and it showed a pair of Chinese parents who made a make shift cover of cardboard around their eight year old son's face. He was dead. A victim of the earthquake. It looked like he also had a blanky they brought to comfort him on his journey home. They sat together tenderly attending to him. Doing right by him.

So many of these families have only one child in China. I can't imagine the grief hanging over these communities.

Needless to say, my job and health woes began to shrink down to their proper scale. Here I was running to pick up my beautiful son. And I was dam grateful.

2 comments:

Terry at Blue Kitchen said...

A wonderful, thoughtful post. Often when I hear the latest so-called "news" about Dancing with the Stars or American Idol or Mariah Carey, my first thought is "who cares?" It is immediately followed by a second thought, the sad realization that far too many people care about this fluff.

Julie Turley, Kingsborough Librarian said...

I totally relate to this. My heart aches for the earthquake victims, not to mention the families in Burma/Myamar.