in the rubble nearby. The man sang …
Mr. Phanor had traveled to Haiti to invest in land for an apartment building, and ended up trapped in the ruins of his room on the first floor of the Hotel Montana. He was buried for seven hours, with only one arm free, before members of a United Nations peacekeeping unit dug him out.
During that time, he listened to another guest and his daughter trapped in the rubble nearby. The man sang to his daughter until he died, said Mr. Phanor, who was flown to Miami with a broken arm, a fractured leg, a broken clavicle, a punctured lung and damage to his liver and spleen.
The Quake Was ‘a Nightmare That’s Not Ending’ — NYTimes, 17 Jan., 2010.
Since I first read those lines, that bit of a story has been on my mind. It is so powerful, and can be turned one way and another for more nuances. It stands alone, sufficient unto itself, and it begs a thousand questions — but what did he sing? Where were they from? How old were they? Did she live?
And for me, it’s also a universal. In how many ways, how many times, has a father sung to his daughter, until he died? A father-mother to a daughter-son? Or vice-versa? It turns in my mind, it churns in my guts.
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