Thoughts from Tana ...<br>

It has been written that the first thing you think about when you awake in the morning sets the tone of your day. In the last few weeks it has become difficult for any of us to bounce out of bed with vigor and readiness to greet the day with enthusiasm. The tone of them since Sept. 11 has surely been clouded with uncertainties. We question what will happen in the next 24 hours, in the months ahead and in the years to follow, and cannot fathom the answer.

Listening to news broadcasts and talk shows leaves us edgy. Newspapers carry stories that shake our confidence in the future. Conversations often leave us depressed. It has been a steady diet that infringes on the joy of living. We want to do something, but we do not know what to do.

A short conversation with my mother provided something I have needed, something encouraging and something beautiful. She had watched a television show and relayed the true story to me.

A mother and her son were in the habit of swimming in a river in Florida. My mother wasn’t sure how old the boy was, but said she thought he was perhaps 10 or maybe 12 years old. After their swim, the mother went to the shore, assuming the youngster was right behind her. He always was. When she turned to wait for her son to step out of the water he was nowhere to be seen. Frantically she called, but heard nothing.

She contacted the authorities and a search party began looking for the young boy. The search seemed futile. The river was infested with alligators and snakes, and wound through treacherous undergrowth. Even as they searched, the team feared for their own safety and doubted the boy would be found alive or worse, would never be found at all. The search went on for days.

Finally on the fourth day, a miraculous thing happened. He was found safe and unharmed. Astonished, the authorities wondered how this could be.

The child is autistic and studies have revealed that people with that affliction have no fear. It was concluded that indeed it was the absence of fear that saved this child’s life.

The story was one of the most positive and uplifting things I had heard recently. I’ve thought about it since, and to me it has great significance. I believe that we must remind ourselves that before Sept. 11, this nation’s people lived daily at risk. In the back of our minds we knew that at any given moment something could take place that would change our lives forever. Countless people have suffered the consequences of human error, accidents, crime and the destructive forces of nature. We managed to quell our fears and step out into the world. We can do it now.

It has been confirmed that the mind is miraculously powerful. This story proves it. I believe that as we transmit this message, “I will be vigilant, but I will not be afraid,” the first thing we will think of in the morning will be how beautiful life is.

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