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My heart breaks for Haiti.

As I watch the horrific photos and scenes from this impoverished country following a 7.0 earthquake, there are JUST NO WORDS.

Earthquakes have caused tragedy in my own personal life. An earthquake devastated my parents' home town, Calabritto, Italy on November 23rd, 1981. I was 7, my brother Joe was 5 and Mom was carrying Frank. My dad left immediately to rescue my grandmother, but 2 of my great-grandparents died in its' wake. My grandmother suffered post-traumatically. The picturesque town was flattened ~ my mother and father's childhood homes, gone. The church they were married in, the piazza they courted in. It was the first tragedy that I remember in my life to affect my family. My heart broke for my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents.


Calabritto, Avellino, Italy ~ town of my ancestry...

Courtesy Panoramio.

I think of lost loved ones, I think of also the terror that after-shocks from the earthquakes must be inflicting on the survivors. Haiti is one of the world’s least developed countries, and relief efforts have been difficult. Also to think of not just about what is needed today, but months from now, as rebuilding must continue to take place in this country. It took YEARS to rebuild the village my parents are from..

We can donate. We can remember to look at the bigger picture in life, while always taking time to cherish the little things. We can be thankful everyday for being alive.

Events like these make me hold my children a little longer and a little harder too. It puts life in complete perspective..



"God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is HIS Megaphone to rouse a deaf world." ~ C.S.Lewis