Past and Future

Elder L. Tom Perry, in his conference talk in October, quoted Pres. Reagan: "I do not want to go back to the past; I want to go back to the past way of facing the future." I wonder about that as I think of the people of Haiti. How can they ever go back to the past way of facing the future? Everything in their world has changed--the geography, the city parks and buildings, the people they knew and loved and just passed in the streets. All gone or changed, mutilated. Familiar sights now strange, bent, twisted, collapsed. Their future has shortened to hour by hour--food, water, sleep without tremors? I wonder if this complete upheaval of life and surroundings erases a past to draw comfort from?

112,000 official death toll. Burning bodies in the streets because there is nothing else to do. One more man saved after 14 days in a collapsed hotel. And we rejoice for him, the one, because life is so precious. One life is so precious.