Susan LaffertyNew Delhi, 2012. The electricity goes off. Right after a loud explosion. Most likely a transformer that’s blown in the neighborhood.
It’s late afternoon when shadows lengthen and shade our second floor flat. I sit in the dark. And wait.
The mental checklist forms automatically. Honed by long experience. If it’s an extended interruption of power, there are things to do.
“Last word, His Word.” It was a game my college roommate and I played.
After lights were out, our conversation slowed. And one of us would say this phrase. When we remembered.
The other had to share a verse. From memory.
The slow but certain flood of a tsunami moves across the globe today.
I’ve watched videos from the one that marked our lives in 2004. The wave that advanced silently. Powerfully. Into Aceh. The water just kept coming. Pushing further inland. One bright, blue-skied day.
And then, as waves do, it pulled back out to sea. Leaving devastation. Empty communities. Unimaginable loss.
Today. The other tsunami. Changing the topic of our daily conversations. To quarantines and lockdowns. Limiting spread to flatten the curve. Shortages of medical supplies. Death counts.
And I remember the Scripture verses that gave hope to the inexperienced. In the December 2004 tsunami and the year that followed.
