Three months ago, I woke to my community utterly destroyed from March 3rd’s tornado. The community amazing came together so quickly, so courageously, so lovingly. 

A few days after that, Covid raced quickly into the community, and around the world, giving us little time to ever recuperate from it, leaving so many homes and businesses destroyed…

Covid then continued, as it still is, leaving, to date, 109,000 + people dead in The United States of America. This number still growing each and every day. We the people all over followed what we were told to do, we came together by staying apart. Once again, we did it quickly, courageously and so lovingly…

Then, George Flolyd’s murder occurred, in the midst of Covid starting to slow down, somewhat, with still a long way to go from us returning to any sort of normal; but a new normal was starting to be habitually set in place for our safety. 

The true presence of racism came to the forefront, a needed issue to be put forth. And peaceful protests began while other non-peaceful organized groups formed trying to pose as those peaceful protestors to cause chaos and make havoc. And while that occurred, and still is, professional criminals and bad seeds in the community came out to add to the looting and violence, which the organized groups were promoting to try to rile up the people. 

But they didn’t win. Yes, they destroyed a lot so far, and it might looks like the Country is falling apart, but they didn’t win, these bad seeds didn’t win around voices needing to be heard and laws needing to change. And quickly, courageously and lovingly we are seeing white people and black people coming together to discuss what policies need to change and what laws need to be put in place to protect and serve us as a whole. 

And while the tornado’s aftermath continues to be dealt with, Covid will continue to be with us for a long while and George Floyd’s death has opened up a platform for conversations around racism and police brutality and how we as human beings can create change for the better, we are all dealing with our own internal and external issues. 

What’s the point to all of this explanation? Honestly, I needed to put this all down to see that we are all dealing with so much and we need to take a breath, all of us, and get that, as a human being, we can only handle so much destruction, death and pain at a time. We must practice patience and love with ourselves and with our neighbors, in our communities and around the world. 

We will prevail. We will come out of all of this stronger. And even though this darkness is pretty freaking dark, the sun is shining in between the crevices to show us we are strong, we are courageous, we are all capable of creating change and reforming this country to be one we want to leave behind for others to walk on in it, peacefully and equally. 

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The reason I didn’t mention anything about Trump in all this is because his negative energy and way of being does not deserve any more breath or conversation. I believe his reactive ways will create his own destiny. Karma is created through the way you live a life and treat others. It’s not a mysterious thing. It just is…

All photos, except little girl holding sign, by Jennifer Vazquez