Hurricane Sandy: Light of Day

      I look through the large duct taped x's I placed across the windows of our 12th floor apartment on the Upper West Side.  The 2 ton crane that dangled over 57th Street during Hurricane Sandy is now tethered to the building.  Where there were once distant lights across lower manhattan lighting up the sky, there is a stillness in the black night.  What a strange bird's nest we have from or 450 square foot apartment.  I realize that literally half of us are without (power, water, heat) and half of us our with.  I prayed through the storm as it battered and shook our windows, that God would keep us safe.  Eric, Sophie and I played together and enjoyed some movies, with an interruption every now and then to wonder if we should move to the hall.  The winds, even with the evidence of seeing a 2 ton crane blow like a ribbon, weren't as worrisome as knowing that this morning, there were people that have awoken to devastation.  Thanking God many times a day that we were not on the worst of sandy's path.
     We have offered our apt., power, showers and what not.  It seems as if everyone across the city who has something, would like to give.  Especially those who we are close too.  As predicted, people have been without power for a week.  Many, most who we know, have had that luxury restored.  The power turns on from the epicenter of the world and is lighting up the many communities that are without.  I easily put myself in there place.  Mothers with newborns, children who should be in school, fathers who can't work, but the bills will keep coming.  Even those people who had evacuated to shelters for the storm are returning home to find nothing.  Petrified of being in shelters where they are ontop of people who have stability issues, mental issues...the existing homeless, who also need help.  On the second or third rotation of the dirty clothes they've been wearing, trying to keep themselves and their children clean on a dwindling supply of sanitizer.  It's the Thursday after the storm, almost 4 days and the stories of need are pouring in.
     Social media is spreading it's collective angel wings and putting the needy with those who can help.   Being a part of the New York community is like nothing I've ever known.  All the chraities in NY are at volunteer capacity.  Amazing.  That is something to celebrate.  Beyond that, we need to find how else we can help.  Just because the establishments can't handle anymore man power, it doesn't mean that there is not still an overwhelming need in communities that they haven't been able to get to.  As the days go on, communities are starting to communicate like a great game of telephone, that they are in desperate need.  Luckily, there are people who desperately want to help.  For most New Yorkers, like myself, we don't have any real legitimate way to get to the hardest hit places.  We don't have cars and I myself have a 2 year old to watch after as Eric was lucky enough to go back to work, pretty much immediately.  I have felt crippled the first few days in the aftermath.  Seeing all this need around us and having no way to help.  The storm clouds are lifting though and the lights are on enough that we are getting specific word of different communities that need our help.  As a stranger to most places we've been living in the past 2 years, our nomadic life led me to the internet for a community of moms.  Returning to NYC in September, brought me to a meet-up group for moms in my area.  This group, along with my Facebook network of people have found ways to give.  People who have reached out for help are being heard and answered.  I'm seeing groups of actors finding ways to give.
      We can do this.  We can help bring communities back and prove that we can be bigger than ourselves.  Responding when you have the chance is when to do it.  Don';t think that next week, you'll do that.  Tonight you have that dinner you are supposed to go to.  Get online and spend $50 giving to Redcross or sending something to the shelters.  If you know a family that has been hit, give directly to them.  It will be weeks until theis is figured out and people return to work and have clean clothes and some semblance of a life they once knew.
      These people are our neighbors.  It's as if it happen to you and everyone around you that you would lean on in a disaster.  Now, who do you turn to?  Social media has made us all neighbors.  Let's get out there.  If you are like me and don't have the freedom to go there, put your money where your mouth is.