Water

Watching and reading about the devastation brought on by the latest hurricane confirms my belief that water is probably the most destructive element on earth, yet without it every living creature would die. I’ve seen and felt what a fire can do, but you can always put a fire out with water. How do you control water especially when it combines with other forces such as heavy winds? Only the Lord can. Matthew 8:26-27 says, “Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was great calm. And the men marveled, saying, ‘What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?’”

I’m not heavy into astrology but I know I was born under a water sign, Aquarius, and it seems that I’ve been around water since I was born. My place of birth, Gaeta, Italy, is surrounded by water and as a little boy I feared the ocean. I lived one street back from the seacoast and can remember how frightened I would get when the surf kicked up. During the stormy season, from my house I could hear the pounding of the waves against the sea wall. And at night even though you couldn’t see the waves you could hear the roll as it got nearer and nearer. It was like a lion roaring as it ferociously approached its prey.

My father, grandfather and uncle all made a living from the bounty they caught at sea, they were fishermen. My father’s death was tied to an accident that occurred at sea on his little fishing boat. My mother was able to survive WWII by taking big vats of sea water and leaving them out for days to dry under the sun. When the sea water evaporated it left a remnant of sea salt which she used to barter for some food (mainly bread). I would venture to say that water probably saved her life.

We came to the United States in 1955 via, you guessed it, water. We spent 9 days at sea traversing the Atlantic. The normal voyage usually took eight days but we ran up against a hurricane at sea and had to divert from the normal route of travel. Even though we were on a huge luxury liner we still felt the force of the hurricane. I spent seven out of the nine days in bed because of the choppy seas. When we arrived here we made the North End our home, right near the water of Boston harbor.

It seems like there’s water always coming after me. Shortly after I was married, a pipe burst right outside our apartment and we incurred water damage to the kitchen. The first house we bought had a problem of water in the basement anytime there were heavy rains. Most of the expenditures in the present house were caused by or are directly related to water. Water damage from frozen pipes, water damage from a burst washing machine hose and even the plumber got doused with dirty drain water while attempting to fix a pipe.

The water problems that I’ve had to deal with are nothing when I read things like, “The house just filled up with water. It forced me into the attic and then I ended up kicking out the wall and climbing out to a tree.” Some of the poor souls in the affected areas had to deal with water rising as high as 30 feet and were lucky to be rescued.

Amidst all the chaos, confusion and heightened tension we have people assigning blame for this disaster. This was on the RFK Jr. Blog site; “In 1998, Republican icon Pat Robertson warned that hurricanes were likely to hit communities that offended God.” How did this community offend God? Maybe it’s the sins of the Mardi Gras.

New Orleans has now become a huge bathtub and many experts guess that it’s going to be months before people can attempt to go back to their houses. Talk about your life being turned upside down. It’s just another stark reminder for me to get rid a lot of unnecessary STUFF. I wonder how much stuff has been lost to this disaster. That’s OK, it’s your life that’s important.