Taking Millie for her bedtime walk on Halloween is always fun. The streets are full of revelers and trick-or-treaters. My big golden loves kids (and their treat bags) and wants to stop and greet every single one.
Even adults jumping around in crazy costumes don’t bother her much, though she did bark briefly at the two-headed man until she realized it was just two people inside one costume. She must think human beings are completely nuts. Still, it makes her happy. Her tail goes like mad on Halloween.
Navigating the block last night I couldn’t help but remember back just a year ago. My block then was pitch-dark. The whole neighborhood was. Two days earlier Sandy had stormed ashore, leaving a path of misery and destruction in her furious wake. Millions of New Yorkers were without power or heat or fresh water. Thousands were suddenly homeless. Weeks would pass before basic services were restored. Months, even, for some. The entire East Coast had been battered by the historic gale. There was incredible suffering and devastation.
And fear. You’d see it on the faces you passed in the dark. How long would we be walking around with flashlights? Trying to stay warm? Trying to find food? For a couple of days it felt like the end of the world.
But it wasn’t. It never is. Last Halloween was truly frightening. But human resilience is a remarkable thing. As the wind and water receded, people came together and pulled together. They prayed together. They inspired each other. Incredible stories of courage and compassion came out every day, every hour, it seemed. Fear turned to determination. You could see that on people’s faces too. Hope and optimism and community emerged from the chaos. On this day last year I said the city was like a big wet dog shaking itself off and moving on. I wrote that the worst humans can endure pales in comparison to the good God can bring.
Good has returned. The city is itself again and it is hard to imagine that the streets outside our offices were completely underwater this time a year ago. Still, Sandy wreaked $65 billion in damage on the U.S. There are neighborhoods that have not been rebuilt, people still living in temporary housing, businesses struggling to reopen or gone altogether.
There are lives that have been changed forever. In our resilience, our will to move on, the past is sometimes diminished. It’s easy to forget that there are folks who still struggle in the aftermath of Sandy, who need our support and our prayers and our love. A year later we need to remember that we are still recovering.
