Thinking About You

Our thoughts and prayers are with Louisiana and Texas. We hope for the safety of everyone there and further along to Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee and Kentucky and all others who will experience severe flooding, at the least from intense rain. There will be so much untold damage to property and more loss of life; and for hundreds of thousands there could be days and possibly weeks without power and clean water. There already are, and will continue to be increasingly fewer places to seek safe haven and shelter and for countless numbers of people, no homes to return to. Our healthcare system and emergency response resources and funds are already taxed beyond their imaginable limits now, let alone in the weeks and months to come as this hurricane season kicks into high gear followed by our normal annual flu season, which many believe is typically much worse than COVID-19.

Hurricane Laura was expected to be at least a Category 3 and she hit land on the coast of Louisiana with Category 4 force and upwards of 164 mph winds. Fortunately Laura seems to be slowing down to a category 2, which is to say it will continue to do devastating damage but perhaps less of it on a more narrow path.
Our entire Country is struggling against the odds in the midst of this pandemic, and so much turmoil and intensity exists with the issues that divide us of racial, sexual, economic and social injustice and inequality. The safety and welfare of our children and that of our elderly, sick and homeless are constantly at stake, unemployment is devastating our economy and lives, and deep political disenfranchisement on all sides, just a few months from our General Election, all combines to create the perfect human storm of relentless destruction to our soul as a nation and as individuals. As a Nation we will soon be facing another devastating after shock in the months to come and into 2021 as the impact to our commercial and housing real estate markets see countless more added to the businesses closed for good and homes lost from one end of America to other other.

We truly feel deep sadness for the residents of America’s States and Cities which will immediately suffer so much more tragic loss and hardship right now with Hurricane Laura. And when she’s made her way though, she is expected to get right back to building up strength when she hits the Atlantic and then heads onward, dancing across the North Eastern States. Several North East States are just finally getting the downed trees cleared and repairs done from the damage of Isaias just a few weeks ago which left over a million people without power and that was just a Tropical Storm. New Jersey was lucky, if Isaias had hit from the Atlantic it might have been a category 2 -4 Hurricane. The Atlantic Basin is the perfect temperature right now for storms to pick up to devastating and deadly intensity this season. This is expected to be an intense hurricane season and we have just begun.

Be safe our friends. Keep you kids and pets and loved ones safe. Look out for your friends and neighbors. If you are encouraged to evacuate your home or neighborhood, during this storm season, we hope you can and will heed those warnings. Our emergency services and personnel and our emergency disaster relief services, programs and supplies, not to mention our emergency disaster relief funds to help everyone have been depleted exponentially already, at a time when the need and demand will only keep increasing.

We as a Nation need strength, fortitude and stamina now more than ever, but without compassion, empathy, patience, generosity, caring of one another, kindness to one another and the ability and willingness to embrace one another and all, then how are we to be resilient as a Nation and Society?
So many are already in need with so far to go right now and so many more who’s lives will be upended.

We need to lift one another up and celebrate our differences to unite; and not increase our already raging intolerance, beating one another up and tearing one another down. So often we cannot see another perspective through our own pain and suffering, and such unbearable frustration and angst eventually blocks our vision and leaves only anger and we are left with rage against one another when we need to help one another now more than ever to survive, both literally and figuratively.
One thing we can all do right away, today is to smile more at one another. We can pull our heads out of our bubbles that make us oblivious to those around us and instead look up from our phones and make eye contact with the people we pass along the way and smile at one another.

The mask covers the smiles some may say, but we think the eyes do their greatest work when they must express the compassion, heart and warmth that our covered faces cannot otherwise display. The eyes don’t lie, so don’t allow them to dull behind the shadow of our misfortune and growing distrust of one another. Instead, let them shine bright with the best in each of us. The light of a single smile in the gleam of wide open eyes can change the course of an entire day for everyone we encounter. When someone is feeling that they can’t handle the pain, stress, loss, grief, angst and the uncertainty of the future for another moment, a single smile shining through your eyes, may be the one thing that gets someone you encounter through to another day!
Nothing but love here, in saying all of this. Nothing but love! – Michelle Dell