Thankful Thursday

Sometimes it's easy to be thankful.  Sometimes it's hard.  And sometimes it's both.

Today is one of those days when it's both easy and hard.

This afternoon G told me that he had skyped with M early this morning.  He said that when he woke up at 5:00 a.m. (8:00 p.m. in Sydney) he had a text from M, asking him to call her on skype as soon as he could.  So he did.

M was crying and upset and G was very concerned, especially since he had a hard time understanding what she was trying to tell him.  At first he thought that M had been mugged or hurt somehow, but eventually he figured out what happened.

Wednesday night, M had gone to the Sydney Harbour waterfront for a light show, VIVID.  She really enjoyed it so she was looking forward to going again last night (Thursday) with a large group of students from Purdue and other colleges.  At some point early in the evening, the group was on a ferry in the harbour.  M asked a woman if she would take a photo of her and some other students, and the woman agreed.

The woman slipped the camera's wrist strap around her wrist and took the photo.  For some reason she didn't immediately hand the camera back to M.  Maybe they were talking -- I don't know exactly what happened.  But what happened was horrible, the kind of thing that happens in nightmares where you see a scene unfold but you're unable to move or do anything to stop the impending disaster.

M said the woman must have forgotten that the camera strap was still around her wrist. She lowered her arm to her side and the camera slipped off her wrist and into Sydney Harbour. 

M's camera was gone -- the camera that she had just received as a Christmas gift 5 months ago.

Gone.  Two weeks into her almost eight weeks in Sydney.  Hundreds of pictures untaken.  Gone.

When G told me, I thought I was going to be physically sick.  As he started to relate what happened, I jumped to the same conclusion that he had -- M had been robbed or attacked.  Thankfully that wasn't the case.  M was upset, but she was physically unharmed.  Her camera can be replaced, but her life can't.

So in spite of the sadness and anger and loss that I feel over what happened to M's camera, I am thankful that M is unharmed.  I can only imagine how she must have felt last night.  I hope that she is able to let go of the negative feelings, put the whole episode in the proper perspective, and move forward to enjoy the rest of her time in Australia.