Musician's Widow

Sunday night, the world changed a little with the announcement that US forces had found and killed Osama bin Laden. I “heard” about it first via Facebook… then immediately flipped the tv on for the news coverage.

I felt… stunned. Shocked. Amazed. And afraid.

People were celebrating in the streets. People were chanting “USA! USA!” at sporting events. Twitter practically exploded.

Still, I sat shocked. I couldn’t find it in myself to dance with glee. I was glad my American flag already flew with pride in front of my house. I was proud of our military… but then, I am ALWAYS proud of our military. I was happy for their victory… I knew for many, it justified their years of service in search of bin Laden. The photo of the FDNY reading the news in Times Square brought a tear to my eye.

But I couldn’t dance about this death. I simply was too shocked.

I felt a deep fear in my stomach… retaliation feels eminent. We just don’t know when, where or how.

I called my husband on the road to make sure he’d heard. He hadn’t, and it was one of those rare moments when I cursed his being so far away. I felt I needed him with me, watching the news come out.

President Obama impressed me deeply with his speech. The writer in me applauded. The American in me applauded. The Christian in me teared up with how he ended the speech. I literally did stand up and applaud as he left the podium. Alone in my little office in Nashville, TN. Thousands of miles away from the action unfolding before my eyes.

As more details have been released about the mission, I find myself imagining it in my mind like an action movie… or a first person shooter video game. Complete with slow motion moments, and lots of curse words that would make the critics cringe and most men cheer.

I wondered… have we become so used to violence from our media that we lose sight of what this meant? Or are we more able to see the big picture because we aren’t shocked by it all? I don’t really know.

I’m on the fence about if bin Laden should have been brought to trial instead. Part of me thinks he should have been, just so he had to face the American people and realize how badly he screwed up by picking on such a strong country. But then again, he’d have gotten glee from our anger… which would have only angered us further.

No, I’ve often felt like sometimes we should take care of things quicker and save the public the grief and expense of a trial. Especially in cases like this… or like in the case of the Fort Hood shooter. We know the guilty, let’s stop dragging our feet and prosecute already.

I respect our justice system and flawed as it is, I am glad it exists. But perhaps this all ended as best it could. And in a way that will be told for generations to come. History was made Sunday… and no matter how my gut and heart feel, that’s really cool.

God bless our military, and be with those reliving the horrors of 9/11 in their minds with these events. They need His love and strength more than ever right now.

I still can’t dance about the death of this “madman.” But I do appreciate what it means to the world to have one more terrorist — arguably the biggest of them all — out of the way. While I feel fear of retaliation… I also feel a door of peace cracking open a little further.

How do you define yourself? I’ve heard a lot of people hate “about me” sections in which a person lists all their “titles” or “definitions.” Personally, I like them. It simplifies things nicely, and you get a very clear picture of how a person sees themself.

For example, mine might read something like this: I am a wife, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a niece, and a friend. I am a Fightin’ Texas Aggie. I am a Catholic. I am a writer and fledgling photographer. I am an optimist. I am happy (most of the time – LOL). I am intelligent. I have a lot to learn. I am female. I am 30…

I could go on and on with titles and descriptive words for myself. I’m sure we all could if we took a moment to write down how we see ourselves individually.

If you’re outside of the Nashville area, you may not have heard the latest controversy in the news. A soccer coach at Belmont University found herself without a job recently after announcing she and her same-sex partner are having a baby. It’s ended up being  a big he-said/she-said story, with the focus being the belief that this coach was discriminated against due to her sexual orientation.

When I heard this story, I immediate found myself once again chewing on a somewhat similar story that recently came out of Aggieland, where members of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Aggies (GLBT) claimed they were harassed at Yell Practice due to their sexual orientation. (A statement that I don’t doubt, to be honest. You have realize its regularly listed as one of the top ten most conservative schools in the country and was recently named by Princeton Review as having the most conservative students. GLBT is going to take awhile to be fully accepted. I’m not saying I agree with that nor that I disagree with that. I’m simply stating it as a fact.)

However, the whole thing sparked a huge debate on various Aggie message boards. I read one thread for awhile until it made my head hurt. Ultimately, it came down to whether or not a homosexual person (or in the Aggie group, an organization) can be accused of wearing their sexual orientation on their sleeve. Whether or not they throw it other’s faces with the hope of causing some sort of scene or controversy.

My response is that… don’t we all do that about whatever thing we feel defines us most? For me, I’m an Aggie. THAT is the thing about myself that I can be accused of throwing in people’s faces. I have my former student sticker on my truck. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wear SOMETHING TAMU on my body (my class ring for one).

My husband is a master mason. He has a sticker on our truck, wears his ring, and regularly will talk about being a “brother” with anyone who asks. It’s what defines him these days along with his musician status.

For years, we discriminated (okay, face it, we still do at times, especially here in the South) against people based on their color of skin. Many have, over the years, been persecuted for their religion. Today’s discrimination du jour seems to be sexual orientation. However at the end of the day, none of these decide if a person is capable of doing a job.

So within that, if I can choose to place a Texas A&M sticker on my truck or my husband can have a Masonic symbol, why shouldn’t someone be allowed to place a rainbow on theirs.  There are people who are pro-life or pro-choice. I’ve seen stickers, buttons and t-shirts about religion, sports, politics and even who is a person’s favorite musician!

We choose to define ourselves one way or another.  However, at the end of the day, what matters most is that others be willing to see past our own personal definitions and get to know us for ALL that we are. Because we are all unique, and we are each the sum of our beliefs and multiple-definitions. I am uniquely me. You are uniquely you. Shouldn’t we all embrace those two simple facts, and take a moment to see each other for all that we each are? I sure think so…

For some reason, my mind and body decided it was time to get up after only maybe 3 hours of sleep. Yeah, I don’t get that either. However, after tossing and turning for a couple of hours, I decided it was just silly to lay there. I might as well start my day like any other normal person would do.

I am very saddened to be following this story:

I may be an Aggie, but my heart is going out to the University of Texas right now. I’m trying to follow this story via Twitter as best I can, and I hope everything comes to the best conclusion possible.

See, in general, the rivalry between TAMU and Texas is a respectful one. In general. You have your people on both sides that can be nasty about it, and they will lose sight of being respectful. But when its come to things like this, both Universities have supported one another in the past, and they will support each other in the future.

I will be following this to the end, with thanks to the invention of Twitter. I am sitting here at my desk wrapped up in my Aggie Snuggie, feeling very overwhelmed by the things I need to do. But in the same breath, I feel a sense of relief that it appears that at the moment, the University Police have things under control.

For all UT students, faculty and administration, I send thoughts and prayers.

Tonight on ABC’s Nightline, they did a report about tourists who pay to chase tornadoes. I grew up in “tornado alley” and today I still live in an area plagued by tornadoes, the article just made my stomach clinch.

I can understand meteorologists chasing tornadoes. I can understand journalists and photographers. But tourists? WHY?

“For the thrill!” one could say, or perhaps even, “Just to witness mother nature.”

I grew up in school having tornado drills, something that baffled my Pacific Northwest-bred husband. Like everyone has fire drills, we would have tornado drills so we would know what to do should that day come that a tornado came straight at our school. My sophomore year of high school, that threat became very real. We were lucky, but I’ll never forget taking cover in the band hall, praying that the threat would pass us without incident.

When I think of tornadoes, though, Jarrell, Texas crosses my mind. So does Greensburg, Kansas. Good Friday 2009 when Murfreesboro, TN got hit — so close to my house — also pops into my head. (I couldn’t help but look up this list of F5 tornadoes.) Tell any of these people directly affected by these natural disasters that tourists want to chase tornadoes just for giggles, and I believe a good percentage of those people would be just as shocked as I am. Shocked and mildly disgusted.

From photos, I know there is a strange beauty to tornadoes. And their power is humbling. They are also something that regularly causes death and destruction. While people run around to chase them — pay money just to see them in this case — there are hundreds of others praying they are spared. Hundreds of others gripped with fear, in no way taking a thrill from it.

I want to believe that the people who are chasing tornadoes are doing so to help the people being affected. Who are trying to learn about these monsters. Who want to be able to predict them more accurately, or who want to find ways to protect people more effectively. Or who want to be there first to lend a hand to the victims. Not who just want to get a rush from it.

Somehow, deep down in my gut and heart, I can’t get behind the idea of people taking a thrill from the same thing that leaves so many in fear and sadness. I can’t wrap my brain around it…

…I don’t want to wrap my brain around it.