Rollercoaster Day

Today we awoke to the news of the earthquake in Turkiye and Syria. It was full emergency response at work, I am due to go to Istanbul for an event in a few days. We pulled the event of course, and instead I started preparing to get in a plane in tomorrow for the earthquake response. It was a chaotic day of calls and coordination, trying to check on the safety of our staff. Earthquake responses are hard - logistically hard of course, getting help to people when roads and bridges are destroyed, but emotionally hard too with the scale of suffering and shock, and the guilt of survivors.

Then, early evening I got a message that changed everything. My friend Anna had died in dreadful circumstances. The person who wrote the message was in shock, and it was a stark blunt message that hit me like a truck. Anna had been struggling but we’d been doing dog walks together and I’d felt optimistic that she was managing.