Millions displaced. Over 40,000 lost in China and 134,000 dead or missing in Myanmar. Since these tragedies first struck, I've been trying hard to find something to say here. I wanted to rail about the Burmese government's xenophobic resistance to foreign assistance. I wanted to share with you how I've been haunted by a picture from USA Today showing a mother reaching, in agony, towards her obviously dead son while her husband looked on, wracked with grief. I wanted to talk about how local employers with Chinese operations like Thomson are trying to offer support to their peers in China as they work to rebuild and find their lost--dead or alive. But the very scope of the losses--the breadth of the suffering...my words failed me.

And they still do.

I've had this deep, hard,  hot sadness that harkens back to the events surrounding the Attack of September Eleventh when, again, I was overwhelmed by the enormity of loss and grief shared, this time, by those in our country.

I remember exactly what I was doing on September 11th. Sitting in my office with my little tv on to catch the morning news as I finished reviewing my email, I watched as they replayed the footage of the first plane ramming the WTC. Like a deadly rose, the horror bloomed with reports of plane after plane gone with all those lives lost. Then, my husband's first wife called to ask if I'd heard from children, Shani or Addai, who live and work in New York and my father rang me up looking for word from his sister. And accounts started coming in from other friends and family who were struggling to account for the missing and hold out faith that they survived. Our whole world, as it seemed, was focused with laser intensity on that one spot on the map.

As it was, my aunt--who worked near the WTC and emerged from the subway there ran for her life down flights of stairs to get away. Shani, seeing that people needed help tried to get back into one of the buildings just before it was hit, saved only by her uncle on her cellphone screaming for her to "Get away!" Addai, uncharacteristically late for a meeting on the 92nd floor....

To the people of China and Myanmar...My heart...You know....

Images from today's memorial

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