Better than OK

According to people who know such things, the phrase "We are OK." was the most common phrase in Facebook posts during and shortly after Post-Tropical Cyclone mega-Frankenstorm Sandy. We are and then some.
As we mentioned on Facebook, the storm blew over a 50-foot, 100-year-old spruce tree onto our house, slicing off the chimney top which tumbled down to the roof of our family room. The sound caused my wife, Sandra, to jump up just as pieces of the ceiling came crashing down. It took a few minutes to figure out what has happened, by which time power went out town-wide.

Son Mike, a building contractor, lives a couple miles away and showed up quickly. His quick assessment, with the storm still strong, was we couldn't be sure that the house was safe. Water was coming in around the stub of the chimney and the family roof was sagging. We' couldn't be sure if any electrical wires were damaged.  After an hour of muddled thinking, we decided to spend the night with Mike's family.

There we were greeted and comforted. We listened Miss Cassie read her report on E. B. White's Stuart Little. Her report was a retelling of the story from the perspective of Snowbell, the family cat. Power came back to the town earlier than expected. Mike and Lynn gave up their bed to us. We were up early and returned home at first light.
The day passed quickly. The tree company that Mike called was on the scene with three trucks by 8 and the tree was gone by 10. A mason inspected the chimney. Mike and a framer friend cleared away the old chimney and patched the hole. The insurance inspectors were on the scene by 4. At 6, we were back at Mike and Lynn's for a birthday party for Cassie and me.

Back home, we have heat from the wood stove. (The furnace will be off until the chimney is repaired.) We are moving onto the new normal that, for a time, has a torn ceiling and a silent furnace. The house, for the first time in more than a century, is open to the east.

More importantly, we are energized with the fresh expressions of love and friendship and competence. We settled in long enough to watch the TV news of the fires and flooding in New York and the concomitant need for  heroics and compassion and money.

A while ago, after a rough personal episode, I remarked to one of my doctors that I was eager to get back to normal.

"There is no normal," he said. "There just is."

Uh, oh. He's thinking again.

If you make it to age 30, you've usually got a pretty good story about the rocks you had to climb over, cliffs that you fell down and survived, accidents you've witnessed. Few people live tidy lives along a path that's straight, narrow, and true. We've left behind a good bit of wreckage and watched others do the same.
And, as a result, we develop stories about heroes. People who have done great things or people who have survived great hardship in the quest of something very ordinary. Recently, I heard the story of a Maine lobsterman, nearly 90, who got his hand caught in the ropes and had the ends of four fingers cut off, but the old salt still managed to bring all of the traps.
We hear these stories and wonder why we can't be like that guy. We see Curt Schilling and an infamous bloody sock. The Japanese gymnast in the Olympics many years ago who broke his leg during one routine and still nailed the landing with barely a grimace.
Why can't we be like that guy? Because we're not and, pretty much, we ain't gonna be. We change, but not much. For every kid who rises out of nowhere to become great, there are a hundred or maybe a thousand who stay behind. And what becomes of those people who stay behind? They go work. They become mothers and fathers. They worry about caring for their parents and making their neighborhoods better. Quite a few will die before their time because of booze, drugs, or just too much of too much. In all of those cases, our heroes could do little for us because they've already got full-time jobs being our heroes.
Look, if you're in trouble, whatever it might be. Pick something. Who's going to show up and help you when you're scared and confused? Not Oprah. Not Dr. Oz. Not Scott Brown. Not President Obama or Curt Schilling or that lobsterman from Maine. Not Taylor Swift or Bruce or Sergey Brin. Nope.
It's gonna be one of your kids, one of your neighbors, a friend you just met a few weeks ago. They're doing a little better than you right now and they can help. Another day, you'll be doing a little better than them and you can help. You take turns carrying each other. Those are the heroes who are gonna get you, or at least me, through another day.
So, the theory which is mine is that we're going to learn a lot more about living better from people who are more like us than we from our heroes.