Check the paper, tune in to CNN, talk to your neighbor and you’ll find out that tragedy hits everyone. Sometimes it crashes down like lightening, so intense that you ask yourself what struck you for weeks after. Other times, it resembles a twister- one minute it exists miles away, but the next it knocks at your front door. When a truly fierce storm hits, trees are knocked down and power goes out. Just like tragedy, though, new trees are planted and power is always restored. All in all, we generally heal and grow from all of our misfortunes- whether they are predicted or not.
Storms have reached every inch of this world since the dawn of time. They continue to collapse homes and split trees right down the center somewhere every day . In August of 2005, one of the worst hurricanes of all time suddenly struck the port city of New Orleans, Louisiana. Hurricane Katrina killed hundreds of people and destroyed an entire city’s worth of development. In the heat of the tragedy, the residents of New Orleans were lost, but with the aid of a nation, within days they were provided with food. Although a fallen telephone pole may hold us back temporarily, crews people work day and night to fix all that was broken.
One can see a tornado coming dead on long before the massive wind tunnel engulfs everything. Warnings are launched sending whole families, flash light and battery equipped, into dark, dingy cellars for hours. If the tornado does pass over the house, though, it causes damage that’s not easily fixed. A predictable disaster can be particularly damaging, but through the grief of having to watch a home deconstruct, that same home can be recreated, better than it was before.
Whether twisters or lightning, storms always leave a scar. Our wounds do heal over time, though. Applying the proper amount of mourning, family, optimism, or religion as emotional bandages helps keep the negative infection away. Each and every person in the world may have their own way to deal with their grief, but the nature of being human is to truck through the bad, and look for the good- no matter what.
