The wind that made the snow flamed the fires

This morning, I was awakened to text and voice messages asking if I was okay. Rubbing my eyes as panic began to set in.
Currently, one of the most destructive fires is raging in California and my town is being decimated.

I immediately tried to call my mother, to no avail. She's in an evacuation zone. She is a ludite. No way to call or text.

I responded to the safety inquiries as efficiently as possible.

And cried.

I got my neighbors to gather Dom's equipment in case of evacuation. And my kitties.

I frantically tried to call my mom again.

Finally, a call came through and she is safe. My mother is safe. And that is all I know. That is all she could tell me on the borrowed phone...I burst into more tears. She is safe.

I've been glued to social network sites for news, inklings if my Mom's house is still standing. Inklings if my house will make it.

I've been in love with everyone. Every check in of safety. Every post of fear, agony, relief all of it. Everyone in my circle after circle after circle is my people. A nurse's aid came in and suggested I step away from the computer, but I couldn't. I needed to see my people. I needed to see people were okay. I needed to share in people's grief and fear. 

I've been thinking of how we live from one tragedy to the next. Even before today, even before my town is the one in the news being declared a State of Emergency, I'd been thinking of this. And now the tragedy is mine. It's right here. Literally in my back yard. And hopefully, no closer.

When your husband's life is on the line, the husband you've waited way too many years to meet, when he's giving all he's got to ride each wave of nausea and fight this beast, and we wait and wait and wait for a donor who will mean the difference between life and death, other people's tragedies are different. They're not less than ours. They're fuller. More robust.

Even before this diagnosis, our hearts would ache for others. I was just the other day thinking of the devastating fires a year or two ago, and how I gathered some of my nicer things for a family and was wondering how they've managed since their great loss.  I had no idea what I could be facing.

Since the day our world turned upside down, we've watched many tragedies. We've struggled to comprehend how one day Dom could just be humming along in life, and the next day flat out. But still alive. While others experience the same humming along....and their life is over in an instant. There's no rhyme. or reason. One house is burned to the ground, the house right next to it is standing. It makes no sense. The fire doesn't judge. It just consumes.

We've looked at each other with a sort of incredulity as police officers are gunned down. Fires rage. Legends die. Hurricanes and floods and earthquakes take and take and take without giving back. Motorcyclists and bicyclists are taken out like flies under a swatter. A man stands in a window and shoots at people for no apparent reason, yet his bullets rain down and arbitrarily snuff out precious lives.  Wars and rumors of war. Angry mother nature.

And heroes are everywhere. They're in great big trucks plowing through floods. They're in fishing boats and canoes. They're laying over their wife protecting her from the spray of bullets. They're standing up to hate and choosing love. They're inviting people over to dinner. They're fighting fires. They're calling. They're bringing diapers to an evacuation center. For floods or fire. We all have the same needs. To have shelter. To have food. To have water. To have sanitation. Or, if you're my husband...and so many other people,  you have extra needs. Right now, he's receiving blood, finally sleeping after an agonizing morning of nausea. Somewhere, there's a hero who sat in a chair for an hour watching their own blood drained for another to have life.

And I couldn't hate a single person just now.

A friend of mine shared a photo of snow in Colorado this morning. A first snow of the season.  A lovely little sprinkling of snow that would be so refreshing in the North Bay. And just after seeing that photo, I read that the same winds that caused the snow in Colorado are the winds that whipped the fires to a frenzy in California.

I don't know what that means if it means anything at all. But I think it does.

The same winds that are responsible for frenzied fires in California brought a sweet little dusting of snow in Colorado.

My Husband's sister, my sister reached out to me as I was waking to this terrible news. From the other side of the world, before she went to sleep, she lifted prayers and love for us. She's praying for my Mother too. Because my mom is her mom. And she was like a sweet, refreshing snow from across the miles, across the ocean, across the globe. She is right next to us.

I don't want to mark my days by tragedy. I don't want to think about how we barely got over Texas before Florida before Mexico before Puerto Rico. I don't want to live in worry about my home burning down.  (Which is a worry I've lived with long before today.)

Another transplant patient calls this the year that wasn't. I'd fallen into that myself. But Dom stopped me. He doesn't want this to be the year that wasn't. He wants this to be the year that was. The year that he is reborn. The year that is. The year that the grass became greener and the sky bluer, and everything came into sharper focus.

And I get what he means.

And I agree.

With all that is going on in the world, I want to mark my days in love. I want to mark my days by heroes. I want to mark my days by sweet gestures of kindness sprinkling around like a refreshing snow fall.
I can choose to let myself be whipped up in a frenzy, or I can be a sweet snow fall.


Post Script~
One of my favorite hymns growing up has been on my mind and between my ears. Just the first refrain. Over and over. It is  the only way I can find peace. To know. In any case. That it is well with my soul.

When peace like a river attendeth my way.
When sorrows like sea billows roll.
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.