I saw pictures of it in the newspapers—the images of utter destruction were more than I could bear. It was still so different, seeing things at a slower pace, and only through photographs, rather than videos, television, and radio. But at this point, it had been so long. The fog was beginning to set in, clouding my memories of my past life. Looking at those photographs of the remnants of San Francisco, it felt like I was seeing it for the first time. Touching the corners of the newspaper, running my fingers across the black and white printed images, I felt like I could reach out and touch them, and feel their pain. Thousands of people were either dead or injured; that’s what the newspapers said. I winced reading the stories of the displaced—hordes of people without homes, destroyed as the earth came up to claim them. I felt sick to my stomach thinking about the pain they must be enduring. After losing my entire family to something beyond anyone’s control, and without explanation, I could relate to them.
