It happened again. I guess we all knew it would – even tho we prayed it would’t… we knew. What I never expected was that it would be five miles from my front door.

Glued to the television, struggling through tears to hear the words that barely made sense to my brain. “Worst ever.”  Here.  My city. People I love, had people they love in that building that very night. Not all of them walked out.

Orlando did what humans do – we rallied, we donated, we gave blood, we fed, we hugged, we cried. And we looked – no – we HUNTED ways to help, people to help.

It’s almost two weeks later and the air is still heavy. The memorials are growing. The victims names are familiar, their images displayed often. Survivors are speaking, and singing and sharing their stories.

And the strangers you pass on the street don’t feel like strangers because we are all wearing something that designates us as #OrlandoStrong or #OneLove – in other words – we remember that we are family. We look each other in the eye, in recognition, in respect.

During the aftermath of tragedy it’s easy to be bold about finding ways to help others. We are willing to wait in line to give blood. We open our wallets. We bandage the broken anywhere and everywhere we find them. We step up.

For a few sacred moments we remember we belong to each other –
and this happened to us all. 

As I sit and watch I can’t help but wonder how things would be if we made a habit of remembering this. Not only after a tragedy, but always.  If we walked through our life actively HUNTING ways to help, LOOKING for those in need.

It feels so easy to offer our best right now.

Imagine taking one persons unspeakably horrific action – and having it birth a city, a state, a country, a world – where we hold on to the knowledge that we are in this together.

It’s so much bigger than the opinions and views that divide us – it’s truly the life and death matters that hold us together. The quick compassion, the empathy, the grace that bursts from our hearts when the world crashes down around us.

The love is strong here.  It has poured in from around the nation and even the whole world. In the ways that matter – in those first moments after tragedy we remember that we really are one… I hope and pray we can hold on to that … so that actions so evil give rise to the greatest movement of all: love.