By Art Gallagher
Michael sent me a text at 10:17 AM that he and Ruth could go back to their hotel room now and thanking me for monitoring the situation. I had sent him a message at 8:42 telling him that the news reports were saying that the waves in Hawaii were insignificant. His email message to the family simply stated that all was ok and that they were thankful and tired.
In the 5 1/2 hours between communications with my brother who was in the path of a tsunami, I kept praying, monitoring the news on TV and the Internet and gave my best effort at my normal early morning routine of checking the news sites for material to comment on at MMM.
At app.com there was coverage of a four alarm fire in Ocean Grove. My mother spends a lot of time in Ocean Grove. Not often during this time of year, but she could be there. Calls to her home and cell went unanswered. Could both my mother and brother be in harms way at the same time on opposite sides of the planet?! Mom called back later from Michael’s home in California where she was looking after his teenage daughters while he and Ruth were vacationing.
So far on this Friday morning nothing bad had happened to any of my loved ones, as far as I knew for sure, but events of the day were shaking me up. Word from earlier in the week that a beloved aunt needed a liver transplant was shocking. Now my brother’s life and perhaps my mother ‘s were in imminent danger. The normal business of living that I usually approached urgently seemed trivial today. The news from Japan was devastating, but it wasn’t personal.
Just after I received Michael’s message that he and Ruth were fine, my wife arrived home from a doctor’s appointment. Lori was relieved to hear that Michael and Ruth were well. She looked happier than I had seen her looking in quite sometime. The surgical procedure she had a week earlier for a back injury had worked well.
It was getting to be late in the morning and I was late in getting to the business of living. However, I spent some time filling Lori in on what had happened since I was awakened for no apparent reason in the middle of the night. Lori asked me what time I was awakened. “2:47 AM,” I replied. At that very moment a TV anchor’s voice announced, ” At 2:46 this morning east coast time a 8.9 level earthquake hit off the coast of Japan.”
I still can’t get my head around that one. It could mean something or it could mean nothing. I believe in God and believe there is such a thing as miracles and divine intervention. I also believe that the power and nature of God is beyond human understanding . I am suspect of those who claim to understand God and tell other people how to live based on their “knowing.”
I don’t “know” that God woke me up in the middle of the night nor do I “know” that I felt an earthquake on the other side of the planet. I don’t “know” that my prayers made a difference in keeping my brother and his wife safe. I know I woke up in the middle of the night. I know I communicated with my brother via human technology and thanks to that technology I know he and his wife are safe.
I believe I received a wake up call. That while I’ve been urgently engaged in the business of living, I’ve paid less attention to what really matters than I need to.
When I arrived home on Friday night after dealing with the business of living, Lori filled me in on the good news from her doctors appointment. The procedure on her back injury had worked. Her suffering was greatly reduced. There was more work to be done, but she told me that the doctor said she had made his day when she told him she felt as though she had a new future. She had been mentally preparing to live in pain and with limited mobility for the rest of her life and now she felt she wasn’t going to suffer that way. If she had previously told me that she was going through that, I didn’t hear it. This really mattered.
Lori will have another procedure in a few weeks, which will keep me working on the business of living. Those health insurance premiums need to be paid and it really matters.
News sources say the events of Friday shifted the earth’s axis. I’ve been moved. Were you?
Posted: March 13th, 2011 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: What really matters | 1 Comment »
By Art Gallagher
Sometimes the business of living keeps us from appreciating what really matters in life. I suppose I should speak for myself, but I’ve heard that’s true for others too. Unfortunately it takes an unexpected catastrophic or potentially catastrophic event to wake me up. Yesterday was a day filled with several wake up calls for me.
I was awakened out of a deep sleep for no apparent reason in the middle of the night. The digital clock in the bedroom read 2:47 AM. I went to the bathroom because that’s what men in their 50’s do when they wake up in the middle of the night, and tried to go back to sleep. But I had an annoying restlessness. I turned on the television to find something mindless to help me sleep. I tossed and turned for a while and felt myself starting to doze off when there was an emergency news break on the TV about a big earthquake in Japan and a coming tsunami. “That’s terrible,” I thought to myself as I rolled over into what I hoped was the doze that would last at least a couple of hours.
The next thing I noticed I was on my feet heading towards my computer. I didn’t remember giving up on the nights sleep and getting to work. I was just up and walking towards my computer. The television still had the news of tsunami in the Pacific going. The digital clock read 3:40.
There was an email from my brother Michael that had arrived at 3:35 AM. It had been sent from his Blackberry.
His email was distributed to his family. He and his wife were at a resort on the north shore of Oahu. There was a tsunami warning because of a big earthquake off the coast of Japan. It was 10:30 PM in Oahu and the waves were expected to hit at 2:30 AM. The hotel was having an information meeting at 11:15. They were on the 5th floor of a 6 story building. They will send more info when they have it. And finally he sent us the name of his lawyer.
WTF! Suddenly the news on the television was personal. I was wide awake. It was now 3:45 AM and everyone else on my brother’s email distribution list was likely sleeping.
I directed my Internet browser towards the resort’s website to get a look at this 6 story building my younger brother was staying at. It looked to be a well constructed concrete structure, but it was right on the shore line! The TV just had a picture of a building in Japan falling into the water.
I started switching the TV between FoxNews and CNN for news from Hawaii and surfing the web for Hawaiian news and government sites. CNN was doing a better job than Fox in covering the events. A web cam from Waikiki was playing loud Hawaiian music that woke up my wife.
One of the news stations had an announcement that Hawaiian police were instructing locals to follow evacuation routes to higher ground and instructing visitors to return to their hotels. WTF! Locals are being told to head up the mountains and visitors are being told to head towards the water! The news shows on TV were talking about something called “vertical evacuation” which means get to the highest floor in the building. There was footage of another building in Japan falling into the water and the wave in Japan was on fire. I don’t know about this vertical evacuation business.
I checked out the evacuation maps on the Hawaiian state website. If it were me and my wife at that resort, we would leaving that 6 story building on the beach and hiking up the mountain. One news site said the police had established road blocks on the evacution routes. “Where’s the jail?” I imagined myself telling the officer as I ignored his order to go back to my hotel.
No doubt my brother was getting all of his information locally. He didn’t even know that I had read his email.
One of the Hawaiian government sites said to stay off the phone lines, land and cell, because heavy phone traffic can interfere with emergency communications. I remembered that being so from 9-11.
Michael had sent his email from his Blackberry. I sent him I text at 4:34,”Praying for you and monitoring internet for evacuation info. I hope you are being moved away from the coast line.” 8 minutes later I get a text back from him, “Thanks, Artie. We’re on the 5th floor of a building on elevated point. 6 feet of water expected. 1st and 2nd fls evacuated as precaution. All guests in hallways.”
“I saw a photo of the building on the resort’s site,” I responded, “I would move to higher ground off the coast, but I know you will make the right decisions.” Michael now knew that he had another source of information if he wanted or needed it. All I could do now was pray, ask others to pray, which I did on facebook while waiting for Michael to repsond to my first text, and keep monitoring.
It was now 4:50 AM. What a way to start the day. My wake up calls were just starting.
More to come later today or tomorrow.
Posted: March 12th, 2011 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Tsunami, What really matters | 3 Comments »
