Java Quake Toll Hits 5,000

A five-year-old dies in her father's hands.
You know, he will remember at 3:00 in the morning, one morning, years from now, how it felt the exact moment his brain told him she was dead; how her cooling body felt in those certainly dirty, bloody fingers. He will remember this, years from now, on a morning when he thinks it is long past reasonable to fall asleep crying.

And I can't help but wonder how our bodies contain these grievous losses and not dissolve in the wash of salty destruction.

Eventually, I think, we all become zombies. Driving around in rush hour traffic, wondering, on the bad days, how it is that our faces are still so symmetrical. Wondering why in the hell we can remember to pick up dog food, pay the phone bill; that the break is on the left, gas, on the right. Wondering why both our eyes are firmly anchored in their sockets.

This is such a mystery to me - why our bodies do not reflect our souls. It would be so much easier, would it not, if when our hearts broke, our fingers did too? When a child dies, should not the arms that held her drop off the shoulders she once warmly nestled into? Should not the skin melt off of our faces, when the trusted lover's lips that kissed our cheekbones, travel over another’s? Should not our 3:00 in the mornings at least offer us scarred stumps to prod in the dark? Did Jesus' body offer what our bodies do not?

And the question I am really asking here, dear friends, the - let's cut to the chase, the bone, cut out the bullshit - question, is - how do I keep breathing?