When CBC’s The Fifth Estate aired their update of Tsunami: Untold Stories in December 2006, a number of friends called to make sure that I wouldn’t miss the episode.

Having spent the first six months of 2005 engaged in research of the Boxing Day, 2004 tsunami for my novel Gold And Fishes, I frankly was not emotionally prepared to watch this program. The thousands of stories that flooded the news during those first months of 2005 were still firmly lodged in my mind, and I worried that my emotional reaction to the update would be traumatic.

I’m not sure what I expected from this documentary. I think maybe I was looking for a status report – Southeast Asia two years later, tales of rebuilding, that sort of thing. Nothing could have prepared me for the deeply personal interviews and accounts that were shared by survivors from around the world. As I listened to each of them speak about how the events of that day forever changed the very fabric of their lives, my soul wept.

From the Sri Lankan teen who tells of losing his mother and sister, to the European couple who lost their eight-month-old baby – from the Thai fisherman who became a monk after losing his entire family, to the diver on vacation in Thailand who lost his girlfriend – these are stories from the heart, told by human beings who will never be free from their memories of such a chaotic tragedy.

Do we have the courage to meet each other face to face in the midst of this new global society that we share? Do we have the strength as individuals to look into each other’s pain, and to recognise within each other the need for understanding and compassion?

If there is a ‘silver lining’ to be found within this story, it must rise from the bond of love that was established between East and West, as millions of people from around the world gave with their hearts to help the people of Southeast Asia survive this nightmare.

On a very personal level, for me one thing is certain: I will never again question the urge within myself to help my fellow man. Also, I will no longer doubt my compulsion to have studied and documented those early days following the tsunami.

Speaking about Gold And Fishes, a friend told me that she was astonished at the level of chronological fact that appeared throughout the book. Because she is a friend, of course I took her kindness as it was offered. Just the same, I was gratified when she went on to say that G&F was an exceptional record of the event, and that it should one day be used as an historical study within the school system.

If that should ever come to pass, then I believe that G&F will have fulfilled its purpose.