We Know How to Sacrifice
The Loyola University New Orleans Class of 2009 dedicated a sculptural bench to the university to pay tribute to 637 colleges that took in displaced Loyola students in the semester following Hurricane Katrina.
When I hear people say that the novel coronavirus isn't that bad or behave as if they are an exception to the public health guidance, I wonder if they're speaking from their own experience. Perhaps, they're articulating that it's not that bad in their own family.
Growing up, my grandmother told me that food was rationed during World War II, and often tripe was the only meat she could get to serve her family. She saved a ration book when the war ended, and I remember holding the coupons in my hand, imagining my mom as a child born months before Pearl Harbor, making sacrifices she didn't even know about.
I was reminded of my grandmother's story yesterday during a virtual college tour my son and I did of a university in New Orleans. In the center of campus, there's a bench sponsored by a graduating class and dedicated to all the universities that took in their students following Hurricane Katrina. I imagined the sacrifices that were made by universities and their students to accommodate these scholars in desperate need of a home. And I remembered my 4 year-old daughter setting aside her toys to donate to children displaced by Katrina.
As an American, I know how to make individual sacrifices to serve the greater good for my communities in crisis. I know that my own sacrifices really help others. We are in crisis, even if people around us are healthy. Our families and our communities are in peril. We can sacrifice and that will help.