We are shocked and horrified to see the evil perpetrated on the good people of Belgium. Prayers go out to the souls who were lost and to the families who must bear their grief.
Almost every day, it seems we are jolted by the latest incident of senseless violence.
My husband and I began traveling abroad some 16 years ago - September 29th, 2001 to be precise. First stop - Istanbul.
We and our two children, then 10 and 9, who were baptized and confirmed that year. I had the "brilliant" idea to take us all on a 2-week cruise through many of the sites St. Paul and the Apostles preached - Turkey, Greece and finally Rome. Then, the attacks on our Nation ocurred on September 11th.
Oddly, and maybe insanely, my resolve to go despite what happened only strengthened.
We were fully insured, and could have had everything covered from Holland America, but that wasn't the point - I always felt that if we pulled out, we might never have tried again, and I was still commuting to MAnhattan - nothing happened in Istanbul, so we refused to let the bastards get the best of us and we went!
We met two remarkable nuns on the Noordam - Angels who reminded us about footprints and made my children proud to be the Catholics they had just become. We met Steve Teague, a brilliant entertainer, and we all remain in touch to this day!
We were moved to tears by the wonders we saw - the Parthenon, Hagia Sophia, St. Paul's Cathedral, Ephesus. We were touched by the warmth with which locals greeted us everywhere we went that year. It was a life-altering, transformational experience, and the first step in a healing process which continues to this day.
While there is no greater feeling than taxiing back on US soil, the world is a bounty of knowledge, culture, and most of all - people, who just like most of us, value family, their God and their Country, most often in that order.
London train bombings or Ireland during the 70s and 80s...Paris more recently, and now Brussels...so many acts of evil one wonders whether it isn't safer to just stay home.
I get that folks are afraid, and that saddens me, because these evil-doers prey on fear - they are, after all, terrorists. If we stay shuttered in our homes - they win. I do not say this as someone who earns a living selling travel experiences - I say it as a wife and mother of Police Officers, mother of a Paramedic, as the grand-daughter, daughter and wife of soldiers, and as an American who will be damned if I am going to allow these degenerates to alter my way of life. We all get one ticket on this amazing planet, and I, for one, intend to see as much of it as I can for as long a I still ahve breath in me.
When I can no longer travel, I can no longer live. This freedom which I value above life itself, and which was won with the blood of so many people from so many great nations is a gift to be cherished, not one to be set marginalized by fear.
May God Bless the good people of Brussels, and all the good people of this great planet. With His help, this, too, shall be overcome!