You may remember it. You may not. I do. I lived 2 miles outside the shock radius in Temple, Texas. I'm talking about the fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas. 15 lives were lost that day. Granted, that's not as bad as Sandy Hook. Or the Boston Marathon. Or the World Trade Center. But it's still bad. 15 brave souls rushed into a horrible situation, trying their best to avert an even worse disaster. Trying to prevent the loss of more lives.
- John 15:13 - Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
If you've never been through West, allow me to take you through there in your mind's eye. West is a community, in the truest sense of the word. Folks have lived there for generations past. The homes they live in were handed down from their grandparents, and their grandparents before them. The town sits on a plot of land that is 1.6 square miles. Not very large. The population in 2012 was 2,831. Not many people. Putting it in perspective, the population of Temple (TX) is 24.5 times bigger at 69,148. New York (NY) is 2901.4 times bigger at 8,213,839. Tokyo is 11727.3 times bigger at 33,200,000. There's your perspective. It's a tiny little town.
Almost as soon as you come into West, there's a family owned and run business called "The Czech Stop". The morning after the explosion, while half of the town still burned, they were open serving first responders. NOT A SINGLE RESPONDER PAID FOR A THING THEY ATE THAT MORNING. Their community had been decimated. They couldn't do much, but they made sure that the rescuers were fed and ready to keep at it. The truest definition of community. If you take a right next to The Czech Stop, you go further into the little community. You'll pass a Sonic Burgers on your left. After that, it's all homesteads. And a hospital. And 3 schools. And a post office. It's not very large at all. If you go left or forward, you leave the quaint little town of West, Texas.
I've mentioned "community" a couple of times. That sense of community is larger than just the town of West. The entire state of Texas came together, from El Paso to Texarkana, from Texahoma to Matamoros. A state of 26.06 million people. The largest state in the contiguous 48 states at 268,820 square miles. A state that is 879 miles wide (East to West) and 801 miles "tall" (North to South.) That's a LOT of people. Yet millions upon millions of people in that wide-ranging area pulled together. Food drives. Clothing drives. NPOs were formed to help families rebuild. Maybe the other 49 states could take a page or two from Texas' notebook on community.
With all of that being said, as I sit in this Starbucks drinking my Vanilla Bean Latte, getting ready to post this entry and go eat lunch, it's a beautiful day outside. From where I sit, I see a myriad of people walking by. Parents with their kids. Seemingly oblivious to what happened on this day in history. Life moves on, and so do we. But that doesn't mean we can't take 5 or 10 minutes out of our lives to reminisce. West Texas and the lives lost will be forever emblazoned in my heart and on my mind.
