“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” Hebrews 13:2
The lazy dog days of summer have officially ended; the sand has been vacuumed from the van’s floor mats; new shoes, clothing, pens and notebooks have been purchased; and classes have resumed. Weeks of Newsletters have been planned; new products have been pitched; desk and files have been weeded out and cleaned up. I’m back in the saddle.
And then the images came: thousands of dehydrated, hungry, sleep-deprived hurricane victims, wading in putrid water with frightened babes on weary shoulders; cots, like dominoes, lined up in filthy, foul-smelling stadiums; buses spilling diesel fuel for destinations hundreds of miles from homes that no longer stand. Mothers crying out for lost children, husbands crying out for lost wives, and grandmothers crying out for life itself.
Out went my freshly-minted pearls of wisdom, along with desires for one last sneak to the beach and a weekend of self-indulgence.
My heart has been pierced by those images, and I have wrestled with that nausea-producing kicked-in-the-gut sensation since Friday, when I finally sat still long enough to fully absorb the devastation to our gulf coast.
One could not be fully human if she were not moved by the visuals portrayed via our media. These TV visuals became magnified because of my own visual of an hour or so before: returning from our son’s chemo clinic (where he is being treated for leukemia), and heading south on I-95 towards home, I watched thousands of cars and vans crawling out of the metro New York City area, heading north for some of New England’s wealthiest enclaves. Cape Cod, Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard and Watch Hillthey all called for visitors and vacation-home-owners alike. The interstate was filled with work-weary travelers all seeking one last respite before the official start of fall. They hardly budged, these gas-guzzling vehicles; the highway was packed in all three lanes. Many would literally sit for hours, fuming with frustration at fellow drivers who would not move forward fast enough as well as by the soaring expense of their idling engines. I hate to presume, but, being that the risk is so slight, I will venture to say that most such travelers were well-fed, well-hydrated, well-dressed and well-heeled.
The contrast to the TV images of the next hour proved a glaring disparity so painful that, as if by centrifugal force, I found myself ejected off my down-filled sofa and onto my office chair, sending emails to the broadcast media, begging for answers to this rescue mission crisis. The image of cars and vans sitting in traffic en route to weekend cottages and second homes contradicted any sense of comprehension of the images of the convoy of military tanks and commercial buses (wading through bacteria-infested water) en route to makeshift shelters in cities hundreds of miles away.
How could we allow ourselves to sit idlylet alone vacation heartilywhile our fellow citizens struggled for mere survival! Could we really lock up our weekend homes for the “off season” knowing that tens of thousands were now homeless?
I have nothing against home ownership…and certainly nothing against second or third homeownership, either. I am a bona fide capitalist, after all. But the contrast between the have’s and the desperate have-not’s is brutally stark, and it needs to be addressed in the most practicalas well as in the most creativeways imaginable.
Be Sensible
It almost goes without saying that donating to the Red Cross or through your religious or community organization of choice is the safest and surest way to help relieve the suffering.
Or purchase a case of bottled water and drive it to a station set-up to handle goods and material donations. Many stations are scheduled for pick-up by the military for drop-off to the temporary housing areas.
Be Creative
Look at your material possessions in a new light: are you holding on to things that you know you’ll never use? Do you have multiples or bulk supplies of common, everyday items that should be put to use in this national emergency? Do you own a business or work in an industry whose products or services could be easily donated to the stricken?
Be Outrageous
Could you buy airline tickets for an entire affected family and fly them to your vacation home…and let them use it rent-free for those months during which it would otherwise be lying vacant? Could you adopt a family and take them in to your own home until they regain equilibrium? Do you own rental property which you could lend out? Could you lend them your second car?
It’s an almost outrageous plan. It would be inconvenient. Hospitality almost always is. It could be uncomfortable. Treating perfect strangers as family almost always feels that way. It would be disruptive. Deliberately turning one’s world upside down is never the natural state.
But the refugees would emerge forever changed.
As would you.
One thing that coping with childhood cancer has taught me is that life always carries unexpected turbulence. Just when you’re cruising at a comfortable altitude, something, seemingly out of nowhere, smacks you right in the face. It’s always inconvenient. Always uncomfortable. Always disruptive.
Hurricane Katrina came with a few days’ warning. But its devastation caught most everyone by surprise. Unexpected turbulence. None of us are immune. Some of us have witnessed far more than have others. And we’ve learned, in our struggle to regain altitude, that sitting idly by is just not acceptable.
I hope your heart has been similarly pierced. Perhaps its gaping holes will demand your attention. And a leap into the outrageous.
Carolina Fernandez earned an M.B.A. and worked at IBM and as a stockbroker at Merrill Lynch before coming home to work as a wife and mother of four. She totally re-invented herself along the way. Strong convictions were born about the role of the arts in child development; homeschooling for ten years provided fertile soil for devising creative parenting strategies. These are played out in ROCKET MOM! 7 Strategies To Blast You Into Brilliance. It is available on Amazon.com, in bookstores everywhere, or by calling 888-476-2493. She writes extensively for a variety of parenting resources and teaches other moms via parenting classes and radio and TV interviews. Please visit
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