"What inspired you to do this," asked a 6 foot tall, 22 ish woman with blond shoulder length hair as she walked up with her dog, an off-white medium size lab mix rescue mutt with a big doggy smile in his eyes.
"Having met with mothers who have lost their children there touched me deeply" I replied, "And now that the media gives these wars little coverage, it is essential to remind people these wars are still going on."
"Thank you for doing this," she responded softly.
This was early in a vigil that attracted numerous horn honks and waves of support, and at least one two-fingered peace sign.
The vigil was joined by a 50 ish couple who often participate and while they were there, a 64 year old Haitian man who frequently joined the vigil, until he left for Haiti several weeks ago, joined us.
What he told us was so stunning, that the traffic noise seemed to fall silent while he spoke and time seemed to stop.
"I am the luckiest man on earth," he stated, as his voice rose with emotion.
On January 12th, just before 5 pm a 7 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti, the first of the shocks that would kill or injure hundreds of thousands of people, and leave millions homeless. This man was outside his office building when everything shook with tremendous force.
"Concrete blocks starting falling," he said as his eyes opened wide while fear filled his voice. "One piece of concrete fell to the left of my head and another to my right," slamming into the ground. "But nothing hit me!
"I ran to the middle of the street and grabbed the center divider. It threw me up and down but I held on."
After the initial shaking stopped, nearly every building was either severely damaged or a pile of rubble. "There were bodies everywhere and [later] the stench was horrible," as human flesh began to rot in the heat.
"People didn't know where to go and then a rumor spread there would be a tsunami and everyone starting running to the mountains," in panic. All the while, and for days later, the after shocks hit, collapsing more houses and buildings.
"I rescued one badly injured young man, and he asked me to drive him to his mother's house. I got him into the car and began to drive but he died on the way.
"I lost 20 pounds in the six weeks I was there. Food and water were scarce and I had money," he said, pointing to his wallet, as his eyes opened wide again and his facial muscles tensed. "I went for three days with nothing to eat or drink. I passed out and a man came and rescued me.
"My sister is a Pastor there and she gave me food and water to hand out. I went to a large park where people were living and they were so desperate, I nearly got [mugged] as they grabbed for what I had," he added as he spun around reliving people coming from all sides of him.
"My cell phone was broken during the quake. I gave it to a man to fix and while I was gone, he started making calls on it. On the auto dialer, he got my daughter [in Los Angeles] on the phone. She wanted to know where I was.
"He didn't know what to say and told her I was dead. My daughter cried and my wife was hysterical. Most of our family thought I was dead.
"I've never seen anything so scary in my whole life. Even now that I'm home, I still feel my house shake, it was so traumatic.* But I'm going back to Haiti on March 30th to help.
"I am a changed man. I say to the Lord, 'Thank you for sparing me. Please tell me what you want me to do.' My life will never be the same again."
After he left, what had become an extended vigil to accommodate his first hand account of the Haitian earthquake, came to an end. As the U.S. wars have shown us the violent and cruel levels mankind can stoop to, rescuing Haitians in their hour of desperation showed humanity at its best.
Dick
Note: *The 1994 Los Angeles Northridge earthquake hit with a 6.7 force at 4:30 am, causing 72 deaths, injuring 9,000 and leaving property damage of $20 billion. The after shocks continued for days but it was all so traumatic, that for months, many of us in fear felt the slightest ground movement.
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