The Boy in the Yellow T-Shirt, Pulled Free
Thursday, January 21, 2010
And then, last night, in the dark, they liberate a brother and his sister from the rubble of a store. They have survived the weight of what must have seemed the entire world for seven days. They have lived—what?—in darkness, in silence, in stopped time, in forever time, in the ultimate not knowing?
He is wearing a yellow T-shirt; he is a lantern of light. He opens his arms wide. I am alive.
Today, in an update letter from the International Rescue Committee, one of the organizations to which I've contributed following a lead from my novelist friend Melissa Walker, I read this:
IRC Team leader Gillian Dunn reports, "People are gathering in any public space, including parks and the sides of roads. At dusk, families place cinder blocks in the road to prevent traffic from coming through. Then they lay their bed sheets down so they can sleep."
What is it, to lie beneath the moon and to wait for the crack of sun that is tomorrow in Haiti?
