I don’t normally try to push people into doing something they weren’t inclined to do, but today my heart hurts. It hurts and there is that sick feeling that I felt when Hurricane Katrina spent her wrath on New Orleans. Here I sit, comfortable in my home, on my couch, enjoying running water, air conditioning, a roof over my head, dinner on the stove, my loved ones and pets safe. It’s all good on this end.
The crap that aggravated me today at work seems incredibly trivial. I have a house. I still have the pictures I hold dear, I still have clothes, I still have boxes full of mementos, I still have the pictures of me and my best friend when we were five and the plaster hand print I made that same year. The people on the television have none of that. Zip nada none, less than none because they have to look at what was home and a life of memories and see it twisted into piles of debris scattered far and wide. Their mementos have been traded for horrific memories. I can’t even imagine. And so my heart hurts, I feel sick, and I wish I could help.
I am posting to ask everyone who gets this to donate just a little to Red Cross. I have no home to give them, I can’t retrieve their memories, I can’t reach out and hold them as they cry, but I can perhaps help someone have a warm blanket, hot food, fresh water, and a place to lay their head.
Just because I am safe and sound
Just because I have my loved ones here.
Just because I have a building to go to work to tomorrow.
Just because I have food and a refrigerator to keep it in.
Just because I have a bed to rest in.
Just because I have the favorite Christmas ornaments from when I was a kid and the my class picture from when I was 5 to 18.
Just because I have the flag they gave me when they buried my dad.
Just because.