Change

I guess I'm not alone in noticing that it's been a little less than four years since tragedy so completely dominated the news.

That is, if you don't count war, global climate change, poverty, disease, and genocide. I got to the point last week where I just had to stop reading and watching the reports coming out of New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf coast. It was just too much. In some sense, it was worse than watching 9/11 (at least for me) because the actual events of 9/11 unfolded in just a few hours.

The destruction of NO is an ongoing affair, now reaching into its second week. I'd rather take the bandaid off all at once, really fast. My feelings on the situation vacillate from anger to nausea to helplessness... and while I'm usually one of the first to get involved in thinking and talking about the politics of any given event, the bitching on both sides has really gotten to me.

Who screwed up and why are both legitimate questions to ask with regard to a failure of public authority on this magnitude, but PLEASE: can't we wait until people are safe, dry and fed? Can't we dedicate the time, money and energy we put into immediately assigning blame and deflecting criticism into actual relief efforts? Couldn't the news companies, instead of hiring security and flying Anderson Cooper and Shephard Smith in and out of disaster areas in helicopters, use these resources to save people?

I'm getting angry again thinking about it. I don't usually cry at things. I have pretty high tolerance for both physical and emotional pain. But I was reading a story in the Tribune yesterday about a lawyer from the north suburbs who got in his car last week, left his work and family (with their blessing) and just drove down to Houston to volunteer at the Astrodome. He helped feed people, carry the injured, he even read stories to children. Then, he took one of the refugees and personally drove this man hundreds of miles to a family member's house.

So I was trying to read this story out loud to Gina and it just got the best of me. I got choked up and couldn't get past the second paragraph. A similar thing happened at a family get-together on Sunday. We gathered at my parents' house in Oak Park to belatedly celebrate by parents' birthdays and to preemptively celebrate (two split infinitives in one sentence!) my sister's birthday.

As usual, it was a good time. Food, presents, a lot of laughter. Then, out of nowhere, my dad got really serious and gave a little speech about how sometimes we fight, sometimes we yell, but we never really know the last time we'll see each other and he wanted us to know that no matter what, no matter what the last thing he said to us was, the thing we should remember is that he loves all of us. Wow. Not a dry eye in the house.

You'd like to think that tragedies can change people permanently. You'd like to think that we can learn from them, both as individuals and as a people, as a country. I'm pretty cynical about the latter, but the former is up to each and every one of us alone.

And it seems like a lot of little gestures, from donating whatever you can to the Red Cross to telling your family and friends that you love them, can add up to something real, something palpable, something that'll help those in immediate need and also help us all get out of bed in the morning.

So let me follow my father's example and say that I love you all with all my heart.

It says so in my blog.

jbg