I’m getting soft in my old age.
There once was a time when I could watch video images of people suffering from Mother Nature’s wrath, or the wrath that humans have brought to others. No longer.
The Moore, Okla., tornado has brought tears to my eyes as I watch the people struggling now in its aftermath. President Obama has issued a disaster declaration to “expedite” federal relief that must speed toward Oklahoma and just watching him speak a few moments ago – offering a nation’s prayers and love to the stricken residents of Oklahoma – also made my eyes well up.
I couldn’t watch the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing. I cannot watch the video of those coping with the West, Texas fertilizer plant blast. The Joplin, Mo., tornado of 2011 is too much for me to watch. As the years have passed since 9/11, I no longer am able to watch video of that horrifying event unfolding. The scenes of the Oklahoma City federal courthouse bombing in April 1995, with the children’s teeth chattering in the cold as they waited for parents to pick them up after the blast? Can’t watch that, either.
But we know we have to stand with our fellow Americans in this terrible time.
Moore will rebuild – eventually. They know how to do it, as they’ve done so in recent years while recovering from a May 1999 twister that blew the city apart.
A friend of mine wrote Monday that the scenes from Moore make the Texas Panhandle drought seem almost “pleasant.”
Today I am counting my blessings and sending them east toward Moore.