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The Hurricane’s Eye Wall: Andrew to Irene
As the early rain bands of Hurricane Irene inch into my neighborhood this morning, I am caught off guard by the flood of terror and emotion surfacing for me that is disproportionate to the impending threat (at least at this moment). The memories of the pain and the fear spent riding out Hurricane Andrew on its northern eye wall more than 19 years ago followed by years of healthcare and financial storms has left me in an alternating state of stoic resolve and deep panic.
My beautiful sons, Dan and Russ, lived through the horrific pre-dawn hours of Andrew with us, and are now grown and living terrific lives of their own as accomplished, hard-working men. Their siblings were already out of the house when Andrew hit us. The four of us would survive together the early years of my husband’s worsening health and the end of his wage-earning capacity followed by deep financial trauma as I struggled to keep the financial ship afloat.
I think we all tucked the night of Andrew away somewhere deep inside and remained grateful we had survived it. We moved away from Miami a few months later when water rushed uncontrollably from every electrical socket in our home and from the kitchen cupboards after roofing workers left for the weekend and didn’t batten down the hatches well enough. We could take no more.
Each time we weathered the next life storm together, perhaps we were each able to draw on that night in comparison and know we’d get through it. But the storms kept coming. Bills kept coming. Health issues kept coming. The insurance costs kept rising. The out-of-pocket costs kept rising. We had been hopeful in the earliest post-Andrew, Clinton White House years that progress would be made on the health reform front. But we all know that history and that her-story. Neither Bill nor Hillary could (or would) fight that fight to a just conclusion, and the George W. Bush years that followed surely left healthcare concerns looming like the hurricane threat levels for millions of us. And we are still nowhere near fixing this mess, in spite of the recent health reform bill, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
No matter how hard we tried together to batten down the hatches for ourselves, the rain came and drenched us. We kept looking for the sun and the good times, and we did have those now and then. But sometimes the crawling back up is just very difficult. Health concerns and related financial fights can be like that.
I told Michael Moore as we sat on a boat in Miami harbor during SiCKO’s filming in 2007 that knowing what I know now and looking back on what happened in our lives, I might have done things very differently. Michael listened patiently while I told him that once on a deep-sea fishing jaunt a friend took us on in the weeks immediately before Andrew, my husband hooked a big fish and was reeling it in before he started to have chest pains (angina). I gave him a squirt of nitroglycerine under his tongue and urged him to let our friend land the fish lest he have a heart attack in the attempt. He reluctantly gave up the rod with its treasure to our friend. My husband never again got that chance to land such a catch but we sure did get the chance to confront plenty of significant life, health and financial traumas without much chance for good outcomes. That day was one of the last best days of our lives -- on that amazing deep sea fishing trip before Andrew hit and before all the other storms of the past two decades hot too .
We haven’t given up fighting our own issues, and we surely will not give up fighting for a healthcare model that provides a single standard of high quality care for all without financial barrier. We will fight on. But in having to fight that fight in our day-to-day lives to rebuild from financial collapse repeatedly and in fighting to make systemic change so the human right to healthcare is achieved, we have had little time and fewer resources to enjoy what should have been life’s pleasures. Relationships have suffered. Time has been lost, never to be regained.
But as I feel the deepening sense of sadness and worry in advance of Hurricane Irene and am forced back in my emotional past to what it felt like to be on Andrew’s eye wall, I do still often wonder – as I did with Michael Moore that day while filming SiCKO – if maybe I should have encouraged my guy to land that fish. At least we’d have had those moments of joy. I wonder today if Michael remembers me telling him that story. It wasn’t one necessarily meant for a wider audience. But somehow, as Irene bears down and as Andrew festers back up in my heart and my memory, it seems important to consider. Land the fish, my friends. Or it will only be the memories of terror in the eye wall that are left.
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15 Comments so far
Show AllDear Donna: In my view pain can sculpt us from the thick block of clay into something beautiful. The philosophical content of your posts is deepening. Although it may seem like a double-edged gift, your capacity to FEEL is a wonderful thing, especially in a society that has taught so many--either through pharmaceutical intervention, or other behavior mod tactics--to shut that empathy off. Too few care...
Astrologers believe we're at the end of an Age, and I believe that earth is a school-house. In order to graduate (since one set of classes ends with each Age), we must show that we've learned something. The closing Age belongs to Pisces, the sign linked with Jesus as "fisher" of men, so it is especially linked with empathy. Venus, the Zodiac's star of love, is said to be exalted in Pisces, for it is in this sign-field, where the circle meets itself, that Oneness can be experienced. Through that Oneness, we sense self in other, and therefore another person's pain becomes our own.
You are a TRUE role model in the expression of this higher love, or empathy.
And while you've shared how much you and your family have suffered, it may well be that through suffering the higher consciousness is delivered; and it is THAT legacy that is taken into future lifetimes. In other words, that is the gift.
I have been feeling a lot of setbacks lately, and the people I know (and speak to), reveal that similar tests are impacting their lives. One reason for this is that our society's ethos has gone so wrong. In its insidious identification with naked power, or the use of aggressive force, far too many resources have been earmarked to serve that ends. This forces decent people to swim against the nefarious current.
Even now, when so many are going without, and with Nature so intensely signaling the need for a collective course change, still the corrupt "leaders" use the public's air waves to teach lies, obfuscation, and twists on truth... most in support of foreign wars, and/or enriching the already way too rich.
"Only the truth shall set them free," is a powerful adage, and it is the key one for our times, as Aquarius, (the sign to which Truth is exalted) seeks to rise from the ashes of the ending Piscean Age phase.
Thank you for BEING that truth. And I pray that life goes more gentle on you and your loved ones! What a spirit you have, that in spite of all your own pain, your life remains dedicated to nurturing others, and taking their pain away!
Thank you for the essay Donna. SR voiced much of what I would have said. The chorus is strengthening from every point on the compass, every dimension of life - keep at it we must.
"Irene" is only one of many natural backlashes against mankind's industrial revolution gone amuck. We'll do our best to survive the storms but until we organize and get our voting straight, we're stuck forever so I'm afraid that you'll have 10,000 similar articles to write before any changes are underway. Good article btw.
Thank you Donna Smith. That's all I can say about your heartfelt essay at the moment.
On the subject of health care, here's a two-minute video of Dennis Kucinich
fighting the good fight in the face of a health care 'expert'. It's also a reminder to come equipped with well-researched facts:
http://healthinformations.biz/kucinich-slams-right-wing-healthcare-expert/
As to hurricanes and a need to evacuate (which I needed to do once), be sure take select legal documents, too: deeds, birth and marriage certificates, prescriptions, check book and banking-account info., etc.. If your house should be destroyed, without these documents, there's no legal proof of anything. Best wishes and good luck.
Barredowl,
Thank you for posting that video. To Dr. David Gratzer, Manhattan Institute Sr. Fellow, facts don't matter, only agenda does.
I won't cry if the Manhattan Institute gets flooded out by Irene. Is that near Wall Street?
Got it -- but no, Manhattan Institute is near Grand Central Station, midtown. It's kind of interesting that it is located near the Yale Club, though.
OH GOOD GOD! When a minor hurricane threatens the Northeast, we mobilize our ARMY! When a Hurricane 5 threatens Louisiana (Katrina) we leave thousands of Blacks to die in the Super Dome of Louisiana. I cannot tell you the magnitude of my whatever about our stupid government.
We need to finally come to the conclusion that the Northeast is much less important to our country than they think they are!
Actually, no part of the US is any more progressive than the other. Don't be fooled by the red vs blue divide.
I really do not understand "Red versus Blue". I can tell you this: Texans are much more viable than New Yorkers. New Yorkers are taxed to death. People from the hinterlands of New York pay too much for citizens of the city of New York. The taxes levied against other New Yorkers are destroying New Yorkers who are not from the city of New York.
If all you care about is taxes, then I see your point. True, the costs of living are generally much higher than TX but TX isn't really doing all that great either once you take out those at the top making the most money and distorting the economic picture. You forgot to mention about sales and property taxes that crush the lower class the most, afflicting most of the middle class, and having no impact against the top wealthy. I think that you need to be more specific so we can get a fair comparison of the two states. But if we can get back to the topic, you know what both states have in common? They're both getting the wrong treatments. TX sorely wants and needs a hurricane to make up for drought hell while NY doesn't need a hurricane and isn't prepared to deal with one. Both states will soon each need their own single payer health care if things like this keep up.
Wow. I was actually thinking maybe it was a good thing to be moving towards a more proactive response for people to this storm. I agree it was awful, and worse, about what happened during Katrina and afterwards. But I was glad to see some better response now. I have seen a lousy response before and time will tell.
Do not take this as support of any one person in office or a lack of stupidity or lack of greed. Both are at work. In a big way.
Just looked over the tracking map and see that Irene is just over the Cheasapeak Bay, right in you neck of the woods Donna. In Pittsburgh it's a mild, slightly overcast day in the mid eighties. I am only separated from you by a few hundred miles but totally isolated from its consequences due to the capriciousness of nature. Yet I feel a connection to you Donna and to all those who are taking the brunt of this storm. With just a little empathy I can remember spending the night as a frightened child in a neighbor's ground floor Mayfair Philadelphia apartment as Hurricane Edna blew by. In reality we do feel our connection to one another and we do feel that we do owe something to one another when events put us collectively in danger.
Ron Paul, whose district includes Galveston Texas, disagrees. He blithely says that the people of Galveston have been dealing with hurricanes for decades before federal aid was ever given. Ah the good old days when there was no effective weather prediction, no evacuation plans, nothing more than rag tag volunteers from Houston to help with the clean up. Too bad about the 12,000 lives lost, but not nearly as bad, in Ron Paul's view as paying taxes and having a big bad federal government intervene in the name of reducing human suffering.
So how will we choose to live as a nation? Storms of nature and storms of life make us think about such things. Do we want to live our lives, each of us as isolated individuals or at most families, each atom indifferent to the suffering of others and bravely but individually facing the vicissitudes of life without the aid of others or do we want to live in a society where we feel that there are bonds of decency and humanity which bind us together to act in mutual assistance? What is the consequence of our common citizenship and what does it mean that we collectively endeavor to "create a more perfect union." You and I Donna know what kind of nation we want to live in, want to create and yet we seem to be caught in an ugly backwater ghetto of time where such sentiments seem to be more than the American people can live up to. Have we past the high water mark of our ability to care for each other and to use the mechanism of government to achieve this end? Will we simply stand by passively when the storms of life hit us, not wanting or expecting help from our fellow citizens and passively succumb as we are individually picked off and indifferently washed away by forces we feel powerless to confront? Is that vwhat it means to be an American?
A poignant testimony about the vicissitudes of life and the current sad state of our collective affairs. And yet I find myself genuinely wondering, with no malice intended, if Ms. Smith would still have encouraged her husband to land that fish, had his subsequent health problems not led to financial catastrophe? He may well have died on deck, full coverage or not. Is this about seizing the moment in the face of the ultimately unpredictable, or the unfairness and inadequacy of our "health care" system?
Hi Donna.
Yep, the struggle seems to get more challenging all the time. Enjoying life's small pleasures along the way is good advice. It helps us stay sane.
I went deep sea fishing once. I was just tagging along with 4 or five guys and didn't know the first thing about it but agreed to go the night before at a a party. The boat was only about 18 feet long and open (Boston Whaler) so when we got about 5 miles off shore it seemed fragile in the swells.
Anyway, we were trolling some bait and they asked me if I would control the boat if they hooked a marlin (They all wanted to swap off on the fishing chair fighting the fish and also keep the reel cool during the fight). I had handled a boat before and also had a commercial pilot's license (for airplanes, not boats) so they figured I was up to it. They showed me forward and reverse and stated that marlins always try to run the line into the propeller to snap it (smart fish). I was instructed to watch the line and maneuver the boat to keep the line from going under the boat. This would entail lots of forward and reverse spinning the boat around. Also, I was told to "chase the fish" if it tried to run. I would know this because the reel would start singing (two guys would pour water on the reel mechanism to keep it from getting too hot) and the line get more parallel to the ocean away from the boat.
After about 3.5 hours we hooked a marlin. For nearly three hours the fish went all over the place. I steered, spun the boat, chased the fish, etc. until it grew tired (I was exhausted) and started to breach. They reeled it near the boat to gaff it and I saw it just below about 4 feet under the boat. What spectacular colors and sail it had! It seemed like it was looking at me. I had been relieved at the controls and was just standing there. The marlin took off again before they could gaff it. We were low on gas so the guy with the fishing pole increased the friction on the reel to keep the fish near the boat and pull him in sooner. The line snapped and the marlin was free.
I never went deep sea fishing again but I will never forget that beautiful marlin. I'm glad he got away.
I hope we can be as lucky as that marlin who never gave up trying to be free.