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This morning I woke up at 7:43am late for school and groggy from my scarce 4 hours of sleep. Everything was painfully ordinary. A normal Wednesday morning. The toast on the table, my parents having their morning coffee and the painfully monotonous voice of the news anchor as the background to our morning duties. Soon enough, math went by and then AP Bio when suddenly I glanced at the tv and a headline caught my eye.
“A 1-year-old boy was killed in the Cold Springs Fire in northern Washington, and two people were found dead in a vehicle east of Salem, Ore. I turned the volume up and watched attentively as I saw the live footage of the flames consuming anything in their path. California, Oregon, Washington all submerged in a sheet of orange ash from the destructive flames. The apocalyptic skies and the multitude of ashes painted the story to seem right out of a Stephen King horror novel. The sun didn’t rise in California today. It was dark, the only light coming from the all-consuming fires. My mind shot straight to the girl who lost all of the pictures of her youth, the girl who won’t be able to show her future children the photo albums of her teenage years. The girl who lost the outfit she wore on her first date, and the place she felt most safe in the world. I thought of the old married couple whose life is relived with the pictures of their entire life, the photos of their marriage, of their own teenage years all now condensed to a pile of ashes. The couple that lost the only thing that allowed them to relive the life they had lived. I thought of the woman who lost her wedding dress, and pregnancy pictures. The one who lost all of the pictures of her mom, the only thing she had left of her. I thought of the boy who stood and watched as the place where he learned how to ride a bike, where he first kissed a girl and played with his brother, the place where he laughed, cried and scram, the place that he called home, burn to a pile of innocence robbing ashes. I thought of the writer who lost her books. The dancer who lost her pointe shoes. The pianist who lost her piano. The baseball player who lost his bat. The photographer who lost his photos. And then my heart sank at the thought of the mom that lost her son, and the dad that lost his boy, the thought of the grandfather and grandmother that didn’t get the chance to spoil their grandkid, the aunt that lost her nephew and the boy who didn’t get to live the life he deserved. I thought of the couple that lost their life, the parents that lost a child, the friends that lost companions. All because of us. The people who consume an overabundance of plastic, the people who turn off the tv when we see the words climate change and global warming. The people that feed the companies and factories that produce immense levels of CO2. We are the problem. We are the reason these people are in pain. We are the common factor.
The earth we live in is very much alive and responsive to the every day decisions that we impose on it. Its moments like these where tens of thousands of people are robbed from their homes and possessions, many with no place to go, that we realize that change is important if we want to live in a healthy world. So, inform yourself and reform your lifestyle. It’s the only way to stop what happening in the world today. I believe that we as members of the earth can do it. We can put a stop to the slow death of our planet if we just make the right decisions.