Together

   This last week just was not easy.
    Still reeling from last week's apocolyptic news was not nearly enough. A family member had a crisis of their own making that sent the entire family reeling again.
     Everyone has been on the phone, discussing possible options, solutions and so many feelings of helplessness. There were many tears, many sleepless nights for many people. It just seemed like there was too much going on at once.
     How could we have gotten here?
     I have a theory, but for now, I will keep that to myself.
     Either way. Here we are on Sunday, nine days after the crisis began.
    Here we are.
    Basically, everything is back to normal.
    So why aren't we super relieved and celebrating?
    Everyone was reminded that this "normal" is a bit tenuous.
    Everyone was reminded that it is indeed up to all of us to take care of each other.
    That scares a lot of people. Everyone is fine when things are going well, but you can really see a lot when things start to fail. You see people at their worst and their best.
    You see who is prepared and who is winging it.
    I felt as if I was holding an empty fire extinguisher out to a wildfire.
    Now here we are. Nine days later and it is okay. We will all be okay.
    I am going to call this week a practice drill. A dry run. A test.
    We all need to get it together.
     Together.
     If everyone could just remember that. We need to work together. All of us. Every day. We need to care for our families and our neighbors. We need to show compassion and love for one another.
     We should all have been taught this. We should all know this. We should all do this. We should all teach our children to do this.
     Oh, how do we teach our children? Excellent question!
     We teach our children best, not by just telling them to do it. We should of course be telling our children to care for each other.
     We should also teach by SHOWING them how to care for each other.
     Either way, you are teaching. You are either teaching them to care, or you are teaching them to not care.
    Together, we can help each other to teach the next generation to truly care.