I came downstairs this morning and found the birthday invitations my daughter made for my son. They were hand written and colored with marker. Her printer must not be working, I thought as I opened one. Inside was a message. - Please no presents...If you are able, please bring a small donation for Haiti.
Sometimes it takes a child or an author to make you realize what's important. I love those kids of mine. And thank you, the shaving cream image will stick with me too.

Last night, as news reported of the earthquake in Haiti, I was on the last chapters of your book "A Summer to Die". I finished it just before midnight. Then, I had the intense urge to write to you. I finished writing to you just before 1am this morning. I don't know how to send it to you, so I have decided to post it in my blog in the hopes that you would find your way to it.
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"Ayiti" they call it in Creole. "Pa' problem" when you ask someone for help.
"why you only come during disasters and political problems? Why don't you do a nice story about Ayiti? a young translator asked me during a trip to Haiti in 1994, during the American intervention. I had no answer for him.
So I went back when things were stable and looked for a "nice" story to do. But there were no happy stories to be done. Desperation, poverty, frustration, hunger, drug addiction, slums..
I wept once as I sat on a curb next to a woman with a swollen leg beyond repair. Nobody stopped to help, I could not help. The UN did not help, the USS Comfort docked on the bay did not help, so we both wept out of anger and frustration. That was the last trip I made to Haiti. I could not bare to go back.
And now this tragedy. I can barely edit the photo feed from the Associated Press as it scrolls on my screen. All the faces seem so familiar. I recognize every corner of Port Au Prince: the flattened presidential palace, where I stood for hours waiting for Aristide, and the look of pain, anguish and dispair on the black faces starig back at me almost asking me, why you're not here now monami?
It breaks my heart it took a tragedy of this magnitude for the world to come to the aid of Ayiti.

Sometimes it takes a child or an author to make you realize what's important. I love those kids of mine. And thank you, the shaving cream image will stick with me too.

Hey Lois My teacher just got done reading one of your books The Willoughbys it is now my 3rd fav book my second is the giver and first is number the stars.