A Hurricane Considered

Posted on September 24, 2005 2 Comments

Last night, two women separated by 1,000 miles experienced vastly different evenings. One in Chicago counted her blessings as she spent a carefree night singing old songs with new friends, shared sumptuous home-cooked dishes and drank just enough wine to rose her cheeks. The other, a resident of Lake Charles, Louisiana, spent a frightened, sleepless night away from her home, away from her family, away from her loved ones, watching, waiting, praying, as a category 3 hurricane, deemed a Monster, pounded her home, destroying everything in its path.

The woman in Chicago contemplated the evening’s expenses – $20 for the entire night – not bad for a night in the big city, albeit a “Girls’ Night In.” She carefully factored each expense into its proper category – transportation, groceries, entertainment – fretfully considering the cost of one more addition to the salad she’d planned for days.

In Lake Charles, another woman frantically packed her life’s belongings into a car, purchased the barest of necessities and left her life behind. She did not know whether she would ever see her new home again, or for that matter, her beloved, trapped miles away, unable to leave. Costs don’t, can’t matter when the thread of life unravels.

One woman, the picture of content. The other, teetering, terrorized. The only difference between the two rain, wind, barometric pressure and millibars. In an instant, on weather’s whim, a life interrupted.

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