Tsunami, a year later

AP Updated: 2:18 p.m. ET Dec. 21, 2005

Asmika’s mother, father and all three siblings were washed away in Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra island. Scared and alone, she married a man she hardly knew in a mass wedding in February and immediately began trying to start a family.

“I’m the only person to survive, so I’m all alone,” she says softly, sitting on a straw mat in the stuffy tent with a zipper door. “If I have a baby, I will have a friend.”

Reminds me of my Dec 13th dream of mass weddings.

My heart goes out to all of East Asia today, to all of those who have lost so much over this past year, here's to hoping 2006 will bring relief and new joy to everyone.