My seven year old came home today and asked if we could go online to make a donation for the people of Haiti.  He said that there had been an earthquake there and that a lot of people needed food and water.  He said that his teachers told his class that they could help by making a $10 donation to the Red Cross.  Looking into those big, brown, worried eyes, my heart just melted - in part, because of the innocence and simplicity of his request and the earnestness in his desire to help.  In part, because looking into my son’s eyes connected me instantly to the thought that in another part of the world, thousands if not hundreds of thousands of mothers like me were looking into their children’s eyes, searching for words to comfort and reassure them in the midst of their collapsed world. 

We logged on to my little laptop downstairs and scrolled to the web page for the Red Cross.  Before making our donation, Dominic asked to see pictures of the devastation in Haiti.  I hesitated, questioning whether I should allow him to see the horrifying aftermath of the earthquake.  Is he old enough to see such images of destruction and collapse?   Is he able to grasp the enormity of the circumstances he would be looking at?  How would the images of the full brutality of this earthquake impact him?  As his parent, what responsibility did I have in protecting him from the rawness of those images?  Ultimately, I decided that he should be able to see some pictures – to get a concrete sense of where his donation would be going.  Although those images would be upsetting, I felt it was important for him to understand the reality of what is happening to untold people. And so we slowly scrolled through a half-dozen still life pictures of destroyed buildings, broken roads and rubble.  We paused over the pictures of Haitian people – some collapsed in grief over the body of a loved one, some staring dull-eyed and uncomprehending off into the distance. Dominic noted that one of the people in the pictures appeared to be a kid about his age, digging through the rubble.  We talked about how scared he must have been to have gone through the earthquake and yet how brave and strong he was for having survived.  Dominic was thoughtful and calm as he studied each picture in turn.  He seemed to get it.

We got to the “donate now” button and I asked Dominic how much we should donate.  Without hesitating he said we should donate as much as we can and so we did.   Not long after, Dominic was on to another topic – stun guns to be exact and how he wanted to invent one that stopped bad guys in their tracks.  We then read a chapter of Pippi Longstocking and then it was off to bed.  Dominic has been asleep for an hour now and I sit here reflecting on my decision to let my son see those pictures of the Haiti earthquake.  This is not a news story that will be fading quickly and so no doubt he will get continued exposure (through conversations at home and at school) to the situation in Haiti.   I wonder whether our experience together today, looking at those pictures, will become part of his long term memory.  Either way, I believe his consciousness has been raised and his compassion deepened.  In the midst of so much tragedy, that is a small but important ray of hope.