Its now been 4 years and first thing this morning, my son reminded me. I was un-coffee’ed. Rough round the edges. As I came downstairs, he informed me the date.
Dad, Its not the 10th and its not the 12th. Its the 11th and 4 years ago something terrible happened. Now we have Katrina and that terrible thing. Is life just filled with terrible things?
Priceless. Back then my son remarked, “why would anybody want to do this to us?”. I did not have the dad answer “ and it shocked me not to. I could not believe that the same place I had seen months ago now was gone. I remember sailing around Manhattan Island in a boat; taking pix, laughing and wondering how cold it was gonna get that day. Then mere months later, all gone.
Now we have this national recognition that disasters occur and its not just us. They happen planned or unplanned and some you know of. Others you don’t. The second kind are by far the worse. There is no planning or recognition on weather charts. I do think we need to learn how to be “responders”. I heard a story on the local news here saying Mr. Bush was caught by surprise with Katrina. There was no “Evil Empire” to blame. No one to bullhorn about. It was nature and we knew. The fact about knowing is the most painful one.
If I take one thing home to my son is that knowing a thing and preventing it are really different classes of thing. Katrina will always live on in the nation’s conscience as thing that could not be prevented but one that we could have responded to. In some years, we’ll vote again for the nationals. Lets all vow to remember the who and what of things this time around. Its past colors on a map this time. Its about leadership and responsibility and morality.
