“A Final Thing”

 There are so many stories being shared in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian while so many still suffer from the devastation. One of the reports that emerged came from a woman in her house as the flood waters were rising. She called 911, the conversation recorded and then broadcast, to declare the emergency, the water rushing throughout the rooms.

           “It’s up to my neck,” she says, and, a few seconds later, prompted by the operator to keep talking, “I’m so cold.”

           It’s not an easy conversation to listen to, the situation dire, death so close.

           The 911 operator starts to lose the connection and calls out to the woman for proof of life, to make sure she’s still there. And the woman says, the end of the conversation nearing, “I love you.” To which the operator responds without one beat of hesitation, without one moment of reluctance, “I love you too.”

           It turns out the woman survived. Somehow she made it out; she did not drown in her home.

           What strikes me about this story is what the woman must have imagined were to be her last words. What touches me is that she called out to a stranger, “I love you,” and then, in the reply which deepens and widens my understanding of our capacity to care, the stranger called back, “I love you too.”

           How beautiful and fragile and tender is the human heart. How much we long to connect, to be together. How deep is our call to love. It renders me speechless.

           Some of you responded to last week’s musings. You tell me you struggle too, with purpose, with hopelessness, with technology and the quickening pace of life. I was buoyed by your responses. No shame. No chastising. Just you reaching out, calling for prayer too.

           So, I send you this story today. To say thank you for your replies and to remind us all of the vulnerability of humankind, to remind you of our strength. The ways we call out to each other when in danger. And to say that here is perhaps the most beautiful thing of all.

           That when we come to the doorstep of death and even as we claim our fear, acknowledge our humanness, we are also naming our deepest virtue, the core of who we really are.

           “I love you,” we call out to someone listening, to a beloved or even the one we do not know at all, and before we take our last breath, we are finally able to hear the words that save us before we go, “I love you too.”

           “Yes, I hear you. I honor you. I love you too.” 

You are the light of the world. 

Yours,

Lynne

For information on how to help those in need after the hurricane, contact Lynne at execdirector@nmchurches.org