With the Death Toll Mounting, I Try to Pay Down Survivor's Guilt

I have all kinds of cute things I'd like to write about today -- how 4-year-old Nutmeg stayed in her own bed ALL NIGHT and credits the help of her (now!) three bedmates, Genevieve the Friendly Ghost, Alphabadouble-u the Cat, and Pumpkin the Cornsnake. How Nutmeg now fearlessly jumps into the pool at swimming lessons and bobs right back up again, and, oh yes, 15-month-old Pebbles' ascent to the ponderous weight of 17.5 pounds. And how dyeing my hair blue was fun and easy and actually led to me getting carded when buying beer at Dominick's yesterday. Yes, you, the lady with the kid in the plastic truck on the front of your cart, struggling with the toddler over your coupons. Let's see some ID, because no one mature enough to buy beer would have pigtails tinted After Curfew Blue. (Note to checker: Thank you, thank you for mistaking my midlife crisis for bona fide youth!)

But it's hard to revel in my own good fortune with what is going on in Burma and China right now.

The death toll for the two disasters is expected to surpass 100,000. Tens of thousands more starving and sick, or lying lost under piles of rubble while their loved ones stand by, helpless.

I wanted to share this cute and funny Tribune article about mothers admitting their worst moments. But then I thought this was more important: NPR's wrenching eyewitness account of parents waiting for word of their children outside the rubble of a school in Sichuan.

If you think you can't relate to poor people on the other side of the world, just think of this. You -- many of you -- are parents. They are parents. Ever pick your kids up from school? That's what they are trying to do, too. Except the school is now a pile of concrete and the kids are unlikely to get out alive, in part because, according to some kids who did escape, the teachers told them, "Don't move, don't move."

I have lots of complaints today too: about how the people in my local Freecycle group are such curmudgeons (not you, Alma!) that I lost the chance at a free radio for listening to Cub games outside because my kids were too tired of being in the car for me to pick it up from the giver's porch on time. Because apparently that radio sitting on his screen porch would have just exploded or rotted away if it sat there for one more day. And I am really annoyed at how my computer keeps crashing this morning, how I just missed the chance to be the FIRST commenter on Dooce.com because (I think) her site crashed just as I tried it. And my throat is really sore, but stay-at-home moms don't get sick days.

Then I remembered, oh yeah, I have no problems.

It's not much, but all my blogging revenue* this month will go to Myanmar and China relief efforts along with our family's personal contribution. Here are the places I'm considering for donations:

At the Mercy Corps Web site, you can designate a gift to either the China earthquake or the Myanmar cyclone, or "wherever most needed," which is what I would do.

CARE is one organization that was already in Burma before this disaster, and seems well positioned to help.

And of course there's always UNICEF.

These are times when I struggle to understand how we got to be so lucky, how I spend my days with two healthy children whose safety is relatively assured if I can only be bothered to keep an eye on them. Consider a gift to those who didn't win the global jackpot as a little payment to ward off the evil eye. That's what I do.

And no, I can't really afford it either -- I'm the mom who just bought a 98-cent-a-pound roast and fed it to the kids despite its foul smell. But something tells me we'll get by even if our monthly budget takes a small hit from sending a few bucks to the other side of the world this week.

This post is adapted from a post at My Funny Funny Family. Carrie Kirby is a mother of two girls, ages 4 and 1. She blogs at www.myfunnyfunnyfamily.com and shopliftingwithpermission.typepad.com and writes for Parenting, The San Francisco Chronicle and other publications.

Comments

[moodymommy (aka Sophia Leto)]

Carrie, I'm thinking of dying a bit of my hair purple. I feel like some sort of change. Anyway, I have had too many "no shows" for my Freecycle give aways. It's a pet peeve of mine. Indeed, we are incredibly lucky just to be born in this country. Thanks for pointing that and the caring websites too.

[phyllis]

powerful words. i too struggle with how to carry on with normal life (and blogging) when bombs are raining down on shopping malls in israel and children are buried in rubble in china. i cry and hold my children as i watch the news.

[phyllis]

powerful words. i too struggle with how to carry on with normal life (and blogging) when bombs are raining down on shopping malls in israel and children are buried in rubble in china. i cry and hold my children as i watch the news.

[Linda]

Thank you for posting this. I feel we live on this side of the world and often forget how lucky we are every single day. We complain about equality, mommy wars, great gear to buy and the perfect classes for our kids all the time, but we sometimes forget how much of the world is trying to parent by survival--getting food on the table, clean water, clothes and a roof. I am definitely planning to donate. Trying to figure out which group gets the most to the people who need it. Thanks!

[Jill Asher]

Yup, I feel guilty as well. I fret over stuff that is SO UNIMPORTANT..... I needed this reminder.

Jill

[the mama bird diaries]

Inspiring, important post. It's easy to try to ignore what's going on because it's so difficult to face the tremendous loss. Thank you for the reminder.

[Daisy]

Very thoughtful post. A local college student from Burma told us that the ruling junta is terribly hard to deal with and it's making the situation much worse. We are so lucky to live here.