Assessing the Damage

It seems that if the storm doesn't come through then there isn't a lot of reason to wonder how you withstood the forces that you can't control.

Unfortunately, the storms keep coming, so we are constantly in motion to figure out just where we stand.

I woke up thinking about the chaos all around. The casino fire in Mexico. The Libya shit storm, for lack of a better word, the fact that Hurricane Irene hammered the east coast.

I imagine that there are a lot of people who are spending the day wondering how bad it all was for them as they attempt to move forward through the rubble and debris.

We had Mom over for pasta yesterday afternoon.

You talk about weathering the storm. She is by far and away the toughest person I've ever met.

I just know all the shit that's gone down over the last few years has ripped her apart. She can get tears in her eyes whenever there's a simple old story, that's supposed to make her laugh, but she pushes right through it.

Three sentences later, she's telling her own funny story.

And her days and nights are lonely. We have a big, close family...we try and keep her on her toes...and for the better part of it all she toughs it out.

The original suck it up and tough it out influence. My kids will be better people as they move along because of the lessons she provided to me and my siblings.

My Dad used to say 'Keep punching.' Rocky Marciano signed an autograph that way.

'Keep punching.'

So, for the people out there trying to figure out what they've lost, and for all that are commiserating that its all too tough, look around.

There are a lot of people who will provide the spark.

People, like Mom, who don't give an inch...

even when it really, really sucks.