Don't Get Me Started with Linda Sharp

Hope.

Darkness set in, yet the digging continued. 

Darkness set in, yet we stayed awake waiting for updates.

Darkness set in, yet the light that distinguishes us from all other life burned bright.

HOPE.

Hope is what spurs the rescuers on. 

Hope that they will find yet one more survivor to add to the 101 who have been dug out by hand since yesterday's storm.

Hope that a child may yet be found alive in a void in the wreckage that remains of Plaza Towers.

Hope will keep us glued to the news today and in the days to come.

Hope will tell the fatigue in the rescuers muscles, the exhaustion in their minds to take a hike.

Hope will turn ordinary citizens into rescuers.  Hope will allow strangers to turn their backs on their own loss in order to help another.  Hope will galvanize a community, a state, a nation, a globe.

Hope will find survivors amid the rubble, and hope will be what also finds further loss of life.  Hope will give joy today, but it will also give grief.  But in that grief, there will ultimately come closure. 

Hope is our greatest asset.  It is why, even in the face of repeated hardship, trauma, devastation, loss of life, and unimaginable horrors, we the people survive, reach out, rebuild, and move forward.

Because with each breath we are able to take, we cannot help but breathe in life. 

And as long as we have life, as long as we have our humanity, we have what insures our survival:  HOPE.

Gone With The Wind

Like people around the world, I have sat staring at my television screen this afternoon and evening, mouth agape, hand to my heart as the extent of the devastation visited upon Oklahoma has been revealed.

Moore has been destroyed.  Leveled.  Neighborhoods, businesses, stables, farms - and most heartwrenching, schools.  Schools that were filled with frightened children at the end of their schoolday.

At this writing, they are saying there are 51 confirmed deaths so far, 20 of them children, 7 of those are children who were in the Plaza Towers elementary school that was obliterated. 

Like Sandy Hook, when we all tried to wrap our minds around the nightmare visited upon the parents of those sweet children, it is simply impossible to truly grasp the horror, the anguish, being experienced by the parents whose children were in Plaza Towers, whose children may still be trapped beneath the rubble of Plaza Towers.  24 children still remain unaccounted for in that school alone.

There is no estimate of those missing or dead in the warzone that spreads for miles.  This town has not simply been mutilated, it has been amputated.  What it was this morning has been cut down, cut off, destroyed.  The thriving suburb is gone.

Lives have been changed in the blink of an eye, the blowing of the wind.  Rudy and I have been there.  We know what it is like to have one minute, to not have the next.  But what we lost were things.  THINGS can be replaced.  THINGS do not matter.  Not TVs, not cars, not silverware or dishes, not even your photo albums or bronzed baby shoes. 

THINGS DO NOT MATTER.  Things may make life more comfortable, but without life, THINGS matter not.  Without breath, a home and hearth are empty.  Without laughter, a school is just a building.  Without heart, without soul, a community cannot exist.

People across this country will rally to their aid.  THINGS will be replaced - clothes, shelter; comfort will be given, aid will be rendered.

But tonight, with each life that is confirmed lost, as a parent tries to take that next breath without their child in it, as entire families have left this world together - I know you join me in sending your thoughts, prayers, hopes for survivors, love, and light to Oklahoma.

If you would like to donate to Namaste, I pledge to match your donation and find the best source for our funds to aid in the relief efforts. The link can be found on the left side of this page.

Lives, as bright as candle flame this morning, this afternoon were gone with the wind.  As for anything else right now?  Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

Today Is My Mother's Day

21 years ago Mother's Day fell on a Sunday.

21 years ago I became a mother.

Though due two days earlier, Culley waited to make Mother's Day 1992 a day to always remember.

My life changed forever that day.  I became more than I ever realized I could be, and I found a wellspring of love within me - endlessly deep.

For 21 years I have watched her grow into an amazing woman.  First steps, first words, first day of school, plays, dates, proms, college.  I have had the privilege of a front row seat.

It has not always been perfect, this make-it-up-as-you-go thing called parenting, and I know there are moments, scenes, challenges she and I would both change if we could.  But moving to each new day with the experience of the one before is how we each learn and become better.

Life has not been particularly kind of late.  Since November Culley has faced down demons, changes, restarts, and a recent health crisis.  As her mother, I had been privately wrailing against the fates that pushed her so far off course. 

But as I said, each experience further shapes the ones that lie ahead.

Being pushed off course led her to security, stability, a place to get her bearings again.  Being pushed off course led her to a summer of amazing opportunities that will stretch into the New Year.  Being pushed off course led her to a stairwell and a meeting one can only describe as serendipitous in which she finally found her smile again.  And being pushed off course meant that when her body turned against her three weeks ago, she was here, with me. 

And in reading those lines I realize that perhaps she wasn't really pushed off course, but that she was simply set on a new one.  Because life is not a straight line.  If it were, it would be like the road to El Paso - boring and endless.

Rather life is full of twists, turns, potholes, hills, valleys, boring stretches, and then stunning vistas.

Life is ... life is a scribble.

And today, I am thankful that 21 years ago, I was given the privilege of becoming tangled up in Culley Sharp.

Happy birthday, Culley.  As you raise your glass with Dip in DC tonight, know that I am silently toasting you with these words:  I love you more than you could ever possibly know. 

 

It's Deanna's Day!