I know it has already been said a hundred times, but I just have to say it once more from a "too close for comfort" spectators point of view..... This is just overwhelming.
the neighborhood, to the excessive traffic going down the street here by our house, to watching the 17 buses drive by filled to capacity with survivors, to watching CNN and seeing how many are not surviving..... it is just overwhelming.
I don't know when I will stop crying. It hurts so bad to see those kids faces. To know they have no home to go to, to see their mothers holding them and crying, wondering how they will care for them. Seeing the elderly who didn't have much of a home to begin with and are now dying, waiting for someplace new to go.
Houston is a big city and I can not begin to express how proud I am of so many of my fellow residents for stepping up, stepping forward and lending a hand, two hands, clothes, food, transportation, homes. I also can't begin to express my fury at some of the bigoted, selfish, hateful residents who are just worried about what these "refugees" are going to take away from them. It breaks my heart and boils my blood to see such petty, selfish people. I just have to keep reminding myself, for every one of those I see - I see three more Houstonians stopping by the parking lots around here to hand bags of clothes, food, shoes, toiletries, etc. out the window to evacuees standing on the side of the road.
But it is still, just so overwhelming I don't know what else to say. I just can't imagine, being in their shoes. To think only two weeks ago I was complaining about the cracks in the sheetrock in one house and debating about moving into the other, since we have two to choose from. As I thought about that today, I felt just as petty and selfish as some of those people I have seen in the surrounding neighborhoods. We have SO much in comparison. We are so overwhelmingly blessed compared to those people sleeping in the Astrodome tonight.
I am so awed and inspired by the heartfelt thoughts, prayers and generosity of the people on this list. People who don't even live along the Gulf Coast, people who don't even live in the USA and I thank God. I am so thankful and so grateful that I have such wonderful and compassionate friends who go out of their way to send help, to rebuild stash and offer sewing machines to fellow quilters who have lost everything. To those who wrote to me and offered to send things for the two families we are helping here in our neighborhood and school - I just can't tell you how grateful I am and how wonderful you truly are. I am hoping to send you pictures of these families once we have had a chance to get them some clothes, some rest and some time to recover. THEY can not believe that people from so far away, are so generously willing to help them.
Like I told DH today - what is the worst for so many of these people and these families, is when they lose hope. You can lose your home, your car, your money - but if you don't have the hope of ever recovering, of getting help and getting back on your feet, then you have nothing.
It is people like you, my RCTQ friends, that remind me and remind these families - that there IS still a reason to have hope.
Thank you, with all my heart, for me, for these two families and for all those others out there who are fighting the loss of their hope today, Tina, in refugee camp Houston