This week I did a lot of thinking. Whenever tragedies in our world happen, I have to stop and think about my life, what I’m doing and what’s important to me.

A number of people — including a close friend of Hubby’s — lost family and friends this week in Haiti and that grieves my heart. Many people are still clueless about where their loved ones are.

Today, I was going to post about a conditioner comparison, but that seems so trivial now. How can I talk about hair when my people are gravely suffering? I know, suffering didn’t start on January 12, 2010 and suffering won’t end when/if Port-au-Prince is rebuilt, but this earthquake has really touched me.

A lot of my family and my husband’s family live in Barbados, an island that quite further south than Haiti. I keep thinking: “what if this happened in Barbados? What if I couldn’t find my parents? What if I couldn’t hear from my aunts, uncles and cousins?” That ‘what if’ just got so much closer to home.

There are a lot of thoughts swirling around my head — but those are for another day. A day when we are further removed from the pain of what’s happening right now. Now isn’t the time — now is the time for prayer and donations.

I haven’t posted anything about hair and I don’t plan to for the rest of the week. I’m going to focus on finding out what more I can do. If you do see a post here over the next few days, it will be about Haiti and how we as a global community can help.

If you haven’t already, please donate. It’s easy and you can donate as much or as little as your pocket can stand. See the Help Haiti Now! post for details on how Canadians can donate. FYI, the Canadian government announced it will match donations made by individual Canadians to registered Canadian charitable organizations to support humanitarian and early recovery assistance to people affected by the earthquake. For details, including a list of eligible NGOs, visit the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) web site.

Let’s make a difference.