I can safely say the last few months have been anything but high. I had an unexpected leak in the shower stall that was causing major flooding below us. "We're just going to tap out a few tiles, find the leak, repair it, replace the tiles and it'll be back to normal in three days." Those few tiles turned into every tile in the shower, every pipe, the tray, the fixtures, many workmen, much mess, dust and three weeks later it was done. I was exhausted. It had monopolized an inordinate amount of time, but I knew I was lucky.
During the bathroom fiasco Hurricane Sandy hit this area. It was impossible to complain about my shower when I looked at the destruction so many people were experiencing. It's been inspiring to see people volunteering time, collecting supplies, raising money and being unselfish. I find it hard to buy things I want now and keep thinking about all the people who don't have what they need let alone what they want. I have a harder time talking with people who don't think about the people who are suffering. I can't imagine.
What's been difficult in the last few months is the lack of time to breathe. It's felt like I've tackled one project after another at work, the shower, and trying to digest the destruction. But nothing prepared me for the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. It's taken everything not to sink into complete sadness. It's also taken everything not to hope someone shoots Wayne LaPierre of the NRA.
The sadness and anger is overwhelming. That Friday reminded me of 9/11. People going about their day. Taking their children to school, kissing them goodbye, never thinking it would be for the last time. It's almost impossible thinking about the 26 people who died that day...caring administrators, loving teachers and the innocent children. I can't think about their parents. To think about their pain and their loss is a place I can't go.
But I can do something. And because I'm an eternal optimist, I cannot end this post without offering things you can do to make a difference for others...and in turn for you:
Support the Robin Hood Sandy Relief Effort.
Make snowflakes to hang in the new school that the students from Sandy Hook Elementary will attend.
Carry out 26 Acts of Kindness. Ann Curry invites you to honor the students and teachers who died. What better way.
I, too, have felt inexorably sad about the horrifying events in Connecticut. My feeling is also layered with disgust, disappointment and dis-ease over the way the congress is avoiding compassionate responsible choices unless faced with disaster, laying a sorry pattern of bitterness and obstruction even deeper in the national psyche.
ReplyDeletePerhaps we as a nation will honor the sweetness and possibilities of those lost in Connecticut by clarifying, controlling and reducing our national obsession with guns and violence (and demonizing/ostracizing those with different learning/processing). An armed citizenry only leads to murders and fear. Our schools are a sanctuary for our society's optimism when functioning as nurturing learning environments. That's why they must be a higher priority. We feel the shock of this violation of our deep unspoken communal faith in schools and community, as they are our place holder for our most fundamental values.
And as parents we are rocked to the core by the grief of the most terrible sudden loss. The teachers and administrators who tend to our children, the kids who play soccer with our kids, and our own children have been threatened. Random citizen deaths in a war without a war zone, and no declared purpose, no identifiable enemies. The world around childhood has been torn ragged around all of us.
Our strength to heal and grow beyond this may be found in the way we approach both the quotidien and the national priorities. After the hurricane, I have seen how individuals have taken on helping one another, taken on bureaucracies, and are taking on huge complex environmental implications. We can do the same with gun control and budget priorities.
Meanwhile, I hope you can adjust to this quiet constant current of grief. I hope it can motivate and encourage me to clarify priorities and savor the love in life. That is my task now. Love you, Casper. See you in 2013.
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