It is the night that hurricane Matthew is going to hit my hometown. It is the night my fear and anxieties are rising knowing that as I sit in a distant town, my hometown is beginning to be damaged due to uncontrollable, catastrophic effects of nature. It is the night that death tolls are continually rising in the Caribbean country of Haiti. It is the night I never saw coming.

Here I sit, safe yet restless. All is still in the night here in North Carolina as I hear of reports that describe howling winds from the hurricane storm that has just begun to near Charleston, South Carolina. The stillness is deafening. The stillness is misleading. Only a four hour driving distance from me, madness has just begun. Charleston is not hearing stillness in the night. The night has just begun, all with screaming winds.

Here I sit, safe yet confused. How do these videos from familiar towns in Florida look possible? How has the ocean spilled into the streets of the coastline? How do palm trees have the capability to bend so far? The damage is shocking. Dark clouds now hover over the Sunshine State. Wind and short gusts sweep the coastline, all carrying heavy rain.

Here I sit, safe yet heartbroken and hurting. Haiti, a Caribbean country, now torn apart and broken. Once standing, now in shreds. Recent reports state that the death rate nears 900 and the number is only expected to rise. Lives, all lost. People missing, lost. Homes torn apart, lost. Animals strayed or carried away with the tide, lost. All normality has been lost. It will take years for things to return to any bit of normality in Haiti, especially because the country is still recovering from a deathly earthquake that took place in 2010.

True, I have not been to Haiti. True, I have no ties or connections to Haiti. However I hurt to the extreme that I do because I am a people person. Any people person knows that they do not need to have any connection to a group of people in order to hurt for others. I see that just as I am a person here in the United States, so is every person who lives in Haiti now and every person that has lived before this hurricane struck tragedy to the country. I experience the same kind of joy and anger that those in tragedy stricken areas experience and have experienced.

It is so easy to put distance on events likes these, especially as we sit in our homes, safe from harm.

Being a people person, I see that the now homeless people in Haiti once had a place of rest called their home too. They had a home with belongings. Their home was where conversations were crafted as dinner was eaten. Home to them had just as much meaning as ours do to us. And honestly, maybe the idea of “home” is more special to them because here, we sure as heck take for granted our homes, probably more than we would like to admit.

I toss and turn in bed under a roof of a home, hurting for those that sit under the same night sky as me, with uncertainty of where they will sleep because tragedy struck their home and country.

As painful as it can be, being a people person during catastrophes like these, I am thankful to hurt for others. Why? Because it puts my life in perspective. My home may be bigger and filled with more than those who lost their homes in Haiti, but it has the same meaning to me as it would to anyone. Even to those living in extreme poverty in Haiti.

So while you are sitting in your home, safe home might I add, remember that distance is only a number. Just as much of a number that states the death toll number in that distant country. For you, is that number close to heart or a worlds away?