There’s so much pain in the world. Suffering abounds. There are so many soulless people just down the street from me in our state’s legislature. I met mothers in Uganda who buried their children because they had no access to basic vaccines that we take for granted. I can sit here from the comfort of my somewhat saggy leather couch and bitch about my son’s standardized tests and the fact that my dog has been barking incessantly. I lose my patience when the boys roughhouse at bedtime. I hear my tone turn terse moments before it’s time for lights out when it should be a time for tenderness.
And then, boys off to sleep with books hidden under their sheets, dog asleep under the end table next to me, I settle in for the night. I turn on my laptop and see images of Oklahoma. An elementary school. I have been in my own sons’ classrooms during tornado drills. I can picture the children, curled into tight little balls, squished into each other so tightly you cannot tell which socked foot belongs to which child, and the mussed hair all jumbles together into a rainbow of tresses.
I went back to my sons, on the cusp of dreamland, to retrieve the tenderness I had lost in my impatience. I kissed them again. I stroked their hair and whispered “I love you to the moon and back again.”
Samaritan’s Purse is dispatching its mobile units.
The Red Cross responds. Donate by visiting www.redcross.org or texting REDCROSS 90999.