“Surely it cannot rain another day” was what we were all saying about 5 days into Hurricane Harvey. What started out as worrying about rain soon gave way to true fear for so many people, colleagues, friends and family in Houston. You take for granted the normal day to day routine and news stories until they are gone.
Watching the news and seeing the devastation non-stop for days and days and seeing your friends post on social media that they are being taken from their home by boat is surreal. Co-workers and friends looking at several inches (to several feet in some cases) of standing water in their homes is hard to imagine and leaves you without words to comfort adequately.
By far the worst is seeing the stories of those already living paycheck to paycheck, face such loss and wonder what’s next for them. Just today, several weeks later as I sit in the temporary location of a business I frequent, I recall a conversation I had yesterday with a co-worker who just sent his wife and daughter back oversees while he finishes his work here and joins them to figure out what is next for them. They lost everything. Despite all of these tragic stories, what do I continue to see and hear…people smiling and saying “others had it worse”, including the co-worker just mentioned. I see an unprecedented amount of support for those in our community, specifically strangers helping strangers. For many the path going forward is unknown. May they have a renewed sense of strength and purpose that we can aspire to attain.