Milestones: Coping in Crisis

Entering our fourth week of “stay at home,” the community has been busy offering up services and support to lighten the load.

Many organizations have actively sought out needs and responded by providing funds, food and favors.

There are so many doing so much during this grueling experience.

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Restaurants offering free meals to front line health workers. Seniors being served with free deliveries. Companies and organizations donating funds in the battle against this unseen virus villain.

Noteworthy is just one local service club, Santa Clara Rotary that donated $10,000 to Maker Nexus making protective masks for healthcare workers.

There are dozens finding many ways to ease the anxiety for so many of our residents.

One of the interesting observations is the absence of sheer panic and the application of service. Organizations, companies, groups and individuals are offering to assist, just to keep the pipeline full, the community busy and the optimism growing.

We know this virus issue will leave us. Hanging on to hope and having the tenacity to hold out is the challenge.

For the short term, the world will be a bit different and it is just short of a miracle how residents adapt.

Few oracles were able to predict, even a few months ago, that the world would be wearing protective face masks in April.

With few objections, people stand in line (six feet apart) waiting to fill their grocery carts at the local markets.

The roads are quiet, restaurants closed for dine-in, parks deserted, and Zoom is swamped.

Looking back at the pain of 9/11, the mortgage meltdown of 2008, the subsequent Great Recession of 2009-12, there have been some tough times in this decade.

Going back a bit further into the 1980s, there were also some tough times. Some might remember that Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and Neil Diamond formed Farm Aid to save thousands of farmers from losing their farms and livelihood.

Invited to speak at one of these farm gatherings was a highly loved and respected preacher from the Crystal Cathedral in Southern California, named Robert Schuyler.

After his talk, he admitted that he stood in front of the audience and was speechless. He had no idea of what hope he could offer to this mass of humanity that faced him. Honestly, he reported, he was not prepared. He left the podium, walked back and forth across the stage and a thought came to him like a lightning bolt.

Returning to the dais he looked at the audience and proclaimed, “Tough times don’t last, but tough people do.”

The cheering lasted forever.

Later, Schuyler authored his book by the same title which became a National best seller.

The book may be forgotten but his words live long and ring in our mind’s ear as we handle another challenge together.

Be well. Be safe. Be tough!

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