An indecent grief

First lamentations, then comfort that strengthens more than soothes | Mindy Belz

Gary Fabiano/Sipa Press/AP

Just off a transatlantic flight from covering the 1999 Izmit earthquake in Turkey—which killed over 17,000—I ordered coffee at Starbucks. I was dust-covered, unkempt, exhausted. I had come straight from the quake zone, watching all-night rescue efforts lit by generator-driven spotlights end in grief.

The barista set before me one of those really tall coffee concoctions, and I couldn't pick it up. The cartonboard cup with its creamy white cleanness assaulted my senses. It was an affront to the dust-laden, broken-up, shaken-down cityscape I'd inhabited the past week. Coming out of it—back to where rebar held to concrete, where buildings stood with glass intact, where china and stuffed animals stayed on their shelves and children slept in their own beds—felt like a betrayal. I stood frozen at the Starbucks counter and wept.