Today I...January 13th

Today I...

...had a very difficult day. My colleague 'C' is a refugee from Haiti and is living here in Montreal with her youngest son. She also has one sister and her family here, but C's husband, two older children, her mother and other brothers and sisters are all still living in Port-Au-Prince. C came in to work this morning despite having no news from her family in Haiti since the earthquake yesterday, hoping to be able to use the Internet at the office to try and find them. The longer she went without news from them, the more distraught she became. She had one meltdown shortly before I got to work where she cried so hard she made herself sick and she had another more severe one shortly after I got in. Words cannot describe how horrible it was to see and hear her, it was literally bone-chilling and it left two other colleagues and myself pale, shaken and in tears. I took me hours to be able to be able to begin to snap out of it and become semi-functional and I spent the morning crying every half-hour. C left after lunch after spending two hours with another colleague and good friend of mine, 'J', who was able to calm her down. She took two tranquilizers and drank some soda and was then able to eat some soup and did get some good news: they found her mother alive. She was going to stay with a neighbor so she and her son wouldn't be alone and we haven't had any news from her since then. Hopefully we'll get some more good news tomorrow, but the fact that they were able to hear relatively quickly that C's mother was alive and have still heard nothing from her husband and children is worrisome. I will keep you posted and please, please, if you feel called to do so, keep C and her family in your prayers.