“Imagine a Place Called Home,” Aug. 29, 2017

Two days after Hurricane Harvey ripped into the Texas coast, I sat at a window in Pacific Grove, Calif., watching the sun set on Monterey Bay.

In the distance, on water as blue as the sky and calm as a lake, sailboats glistened like the wings of angels. A tour boat of whale watchers left a “V” in its wake as it headed back to dock in time for supper. Seagulls soared and swooped and cackled. Pelicans glided along the shore, diving for sardines and anchovies.

In a quiet cove by Lovers Point, a family of sea otters lay belly-up, anchored in a bed of kelp, cracking clams or crabs (“clack-clack!”) with a rock.

Along Ocean View Blvd., stately old Victorians blushed pink in the setting sun. And as day turned to evening, lights began to glitter around the bay, forming what locals like to call “the Queen’s Necklace.”

I wish you could’ve seen it.

Amid the stillness and peace of that lovely moment, my mind kept replaying horrific images and stories from the news about the devastation in Texas.

It’s hard to be at peace when your neighbors are in danger.

My husband and I live in Las Vegas, but we’ve spent the past month visiting family and friends on the Monterey Peninsula, the place we first met and will always call home. I lived in Pacific Grove for more than 30 years. My three children grew up riding their bikes to school and to the beach and the ice-cream parlor.

From preschool through middle school, they marched with their classmates every fall in a parade to celebrate the return migration of Monarch butterflies to the town. Two of my grandchildren are set to march in that parade this year.

Does that sound overly idyllic? Maybe. But aren’t hometowns places we all tend to idealize, even if only in memories?

Thinking about the news from Texas, I tried to imagine Pacific Grove in the aftermath of a Category 4 hurricane. What would 130 mph winds, a 12-foot storm surge and as much as 60 inches of rain do to this place that I know so well and love so dearly?

Those boats in the bay? The Victorians on the waterfront? The birds and otters and other wildlife? The schools and churches, homes and possessions, hopes and dreams and, most of all, the lives of my children and grandchildren and neighbors and friends?

I couldn’t imagine it.

Sometimes life makes the unimaginable a reality. And the best we can do _ an essential act of empathy that makes us, at once, most human and most godlike, and enables us to help bear each other’s burdens _ is to picture ourselves in the place of those who are suffering and try to feel what they feel.

If we can do that, we will find ways, with the grace of God, to help them survive and move forward with their lives. And then, when the unimaginable becomes a reality for us, we can hope that others, in turn, will see themselves in our place and try to feel what we feel.

I’ve never been to Rockport, Texas, the small town where Hurricane Harvey made landfall. But my heart goes out to the people who call it home _ and to thousands of others in Corpus Christi and Houston and all across the Gulf Coast _ who have lost so much and stand to lose even more in days to come.

To feel for someone’s suffering is a start. But it’s only a beginning. The victims of Hurricane Harvey need prayers and encouragement. But they are also in dire need of money.

Here are two places to donate: The Salvation Army at 1-800-SAL-ARMY (725-2769) or www.salvationarmyusa.org; and the American Redcross at 1-800-HELP NOW (1-800-435-7669) or www.redcross.org.

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