Todd,

Loss to some people means working harder to meet the challenge.
To an elderly person who is not well, it could mean they feel its the end.
To a young person who can't find their parents, even a few days will reap an insecurity for a lifetime.
For a hard working person, the loss of a job is the loss of themselves.
And it goes on forever.
Has anyone here ever imagined being homeless?
Well, we can now compassionately understand what that means.

If one house remains standing after a natural disaster, those folks are lucky, the rest are miserable. Can the homeowner of the house which remains feel lucky while everyone else is miserable? Not really. It's a strange kind of relief.

Disaster doesn't have to be huge to have a huge impact; but it has to be huge if a nation full of people who are so monitarily centered people need to learn that money is not everything. You are you, you are not your job, you are not your house and you are not your bank account. If these are all gone, you are still you and still very valuable, no matter what you do.

I've spent more years caring for people with losses than anyone here and doing it daily and I do it because I love it. But I am not any better than anyone else when my needs are challenged. I'm lousy at it.

Disasters don't have to be big to be disasters. They can be a one person show or a million, but the impact on the individual is still the same, devasating.

Petra