wide as a river

This afternoon, Jennif*r and Zoe accompanied the boys and I on a walk to a campy neighborhood festival by the lake near our house. It was a time as lovely and bucolic as it gets in the city, first-time bouncy house for bouncing boys, giggling and spinning over blue and yellow vinyl, having a picnic of watermelon, corn and sandwiches next to the playground, going on a pony ride, led by another boy of perhaps eleven, sweet and kind. My cell phone rang, first during the pony ride, ignored while watching N’s impossibly giant smile, his whole body tense with the happiness of his body moving in rhythm with the pony, clip-clopping over the almost dead grass. It rang again as we were leaving; I made a move to answer it, or at least see who was calling, but I needed to hold my niece as we got our three children, two bags and two strollers going in one direction through a growing crowd of festival goers.

The ringing forgotten, we women with our strollers walked easily in the windy heat, the crispy leaves of drought blowing across our feet as if it was early Fall. We talked about sleep schedules, family news, the ordinary stuff of friendly conversations. When we got home, the phone was ringing, and finally realizing that there might be some urgent reason to answer it, I ran to pick it up. It was Meag*an, and she was breathless, crying, and could hardly get the words out. Horrible words.

We’re OK – I’m OK – I’m so relieved you’re OK! The bridge is down! The 35W bridge – it’s collapsed, into the Mississippi River . All the cars with it. I’m there – it was a block from Phi*l’s house. We’re trying to help - There’s smoke everywhere...

This city, this beautiful city, holding on one side, a brown-haired boy on a brown pony, smile as wide as a river, and at the same moment, three miles North, terror, horror, shock, trauma, death. A bridge, crossed countless times by most of the people I hold dear, crossing it, the most beautiful view of the city to be had, showing downtown’s skyscrapers, the old flour mills, industry, new modern buildings and green parkland, all in one sweeping vista seen best from the middle of its' eight-lane concrete span, right before choosing from one of three highways, all arteries into the heart of this city's Southside neighborhoods. An entire bridge, dropped unevenly into the Mississippi, all the cars with it, all the people whose loved ones fear that they might have been near or even on it calling each other at once, all the procedures and rescuers following plans no-one ever wants to have to put into place. Torn up, burned up and half-drowned people flooding the Emergency Room of the hospital where I work, Meag*an and Phi*l pulling a bloody man out of the wreckage and up the steep banks of the river. Sixty children on a school bus; sixty children still alive. Miracles and tragedies, large and small, everywhere. 7 confirmed dead, 35 injured, 20 missing, their loved ones waiting and hoping. May God be with them all.

After connecting with everyone I needed to, after Jennif*er left in her minivan with my almost sleeping niece, after my boys, thankfully oblivious, were tucked into bed, after J got home, and I tended to the ordinary tasks of dinner and cleanup, I walked outside. I came out the front door to a green sky, with no wind at all, the threat of bad weather that never did come, the flickering lights of televisions seen through all the front windows. There was not another soul on the street, almost dead silence, the air full and heavy, just a few drops of rain, fat tears on the pavement of our front walk.

Minneapolis , my beloved adopted hometown, city of lakes, and bridges, and one mighty green river, tonight I cry for you.