My girls will never know the Haiti I knew...and I will never know the Haiti my mother knew....

My eyes have been welling up all day. I've sometimes coughed out a weep out of nowhere it seems. Then it dawns on me that I am going though all the feelings and emotions of mourning. I feel like someone I knew personally has died. I am wearing all black today. My hair is pulled back. I'm not wearing any makeup. Like a good Haitian in mourning should! I wasn't told to. I woke up and instinctively did it. I realize that I am also having those moments that only come after you have lost something precious. 1.The realizations of what you no longer have. 2.What life will mean to you now that "its" gone. and 3. How will you cope without that thing or person? How will you fill the void? When I got engaged...I realized my mother would not witness her baby girl get married. When I got married I realized she would not see any of my children born and so on and so forth. When I started to earn a decent living, I coulndn't wisk her away on a cruise or buy her nice things. She was gone. Haiti is like that for me and so many others. It IS our mother land. We dont have to fly all the way to Africa and walk amongst strangers to find our connection with the universe. We have our ancestry right here in our back yard. Over 200years of History as a FREE NATION. When I heard of the destruction of all of our landmarks,the Royal Palace, Sacre Coeur Church, Hotel Christopher, Petionville, Chans Mas, la ville and so many others, I realized that a part of me had also been destroyed. I had longed for a day to "show off" my country to my husband and my children. Of course, there was never a good time to go. Its too dangerous! You'll get kidnapped! You'll get sick! Then our first daughter was born...she's too little to go. Then we had our second daughter... she's to young to go. For the "good time" we continued to wait. Now...There is no waiting. We are on hold indefinitely. My cousin and his wife were saving money to one day return to Haiti for good. Who can return now?
What my mother saw, I longed to see...What I saw, my daughters will long to see...but maybe what my daughters see, will be what we have always been waiting for. I pray that we see a New Haiti in our lifetime or in our children's lifetime. May God watch over Haiti.