So much sorrow

Unless you've been dead for the past week, you'll know that the Australian State of Queensland is pretty much now under water. There's plenty of imagery around if you've missed it. I won't link to it because I just can't bear to see another thing about it - it's too distressing.

Yesterday, sitting in the waiting room of the radiation department of a hospital, the rolling coverage of the crisis was playing on the television. 'How bloody depressing', I thought: a bunch of people with cancer, or people who have a loved one with cancer, sitting around watching footage of another bunch of people who are losing their homes and businesses, and in some cases loved ones, to horrendous flooding. Couldn't we just put on Seinfeld re-runs or something?

I hate being in that place at the best of times and sitting there yesterday, watching the devastation in Queensland, was just awful. I tried to distract myself by reading the Huffington Post on my phone but to no avail. There's no mobile reception three floors under the ground. I took out my notepad to get some work done. But I am working on a thesis about abused children. That wasn't cheering me up. Still avoiding eye contact with the television, I picked up the extremely outdated magazine on the table next to me. That too was depressing - all of these beautiful things in there that I wanted but can't buy. But at least that was the superficial kind of depressing. A first world problem. So I kept my head deep in that magazine.

But then some people came and sat next to me. A tall man and a tall woman. One of them pushing a pram. As they sat, I looked at them and smiled. And then I saw their little boy, probably about four years old. His skin was grey, his eyes were bruised black, and there were texta lines over his face and arms. He was the one there for radiation. I could hear him breathing. There was a deep and frightening rattle in his chest that sounded like nothing I've ever heard before. That right there was my tipping point. I'm sure the last thing this poor couple needed was another face looking at them in pity but I couldn't keep the tears in.

This life can be just awful.

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With regards to the floods, please, if you can, donate something, anything, here: http://www.qld.gov.au/floods/donate.html

For cancer research: http://www.petermac.org/Foundation/DonateNow