I always get a little case of blog shame when I neglect to post something at least a few times a week. Then, I feel like I owe you an explanation on where I've been. I know you come here to read about senior housing and not my personal trials. This once, I'm going to justify it since you've heard so much about Minneapolis in the news this last week. If you're like me, more than you've wanted to.
Almost exactly 656 hours ago I received a frantic text message from my mom asking me to call her. "Oh no." I had terrible thoughts of either my Mother or Father falling ill. When I tried to call her I couldn't get through. I got the recorded message with the woman's voice "All circuits are busy now".
I just happened to turn on the news, and my stomach sunk as I saw pictures of a local bridge that had collapsed. Now it was my turn to send frantic text messages to my friends and family to make sure everyone was accounted for. Text messages were the only way to get through to anyone...the phone lines were all jammed.
Although we breathed a sigh of relief that all of our people were accounted for, the last week things in my city have been different. You see, we are, for the large part, a very reserved proud Scandinavian bunch. This last week the words "How are you?" were not said as a casual greeting. Instead, the entire city looked into each others eyes and asked "How are you?" with concern, compassion, and empathy.
I learned early this week about an acquaintance of mine and a friend of my husband, lost both her mother and brother. There are not many degrees of seperation between us Minnesotans. Which is why when something like this happens, we all grieve.
As I (we?) try to break through this fog of grief, it seems we cannot get away from the media coverage. It's a constant reminder, the same stories repeated over and over in a very public way. It's like a lead weight hung from your shoulders-just impossible to shake.
It's times like these I wish the media would take a lesson from the bloggers, and just take a break.
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