I know I just extolled the virtues of Alaska living in last week’s re-post.
In truth, I have a love/ hate relationship with Alaska, the place where I’ve lived more than four decades now.
On one hand, it’s brutally cold and dark for well over half the year, physically far from every where I want to travel.
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| Alaska, May 2013 |
On the other hand, it’s gorgeous, with lush animal and plant life, and generally under-populated. But it’s the people who live here who make Alaska exceptional.
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| Alaska, May 2013 |
A week and a day ago, our community was rocked with a double homicide and sexual assault of a toddler.
A registered sex offender broke into an apartment and beat an elderly couple to death, raping the woman and her granddaughter as her mother, a woman in her nineties with Alzheimer’s watched helplessly. The couple were refugees from Cambodia and had already survived unimaginable horrors before they reached the US in the 1970’s.
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| Old family photo printed in Anchorage Daily News |
What good could possibly come from such a hideous set of circumstances?
The community response.
Musicians, artists, deejays, faith communities, and representatives from every walk of life joined together the following Wednesday to raise money to cover the families out-of pocket funeral and medical expenses.
The suggested donation was $10. Many of the attendants appeared to have little more, but they gave generously. The deejay opened up the concert with the proclamation, “Today, we are celebrating life!”
In the end, more than $20,000 was raised, one, two, and ten dollars at a time.
“As Alaskans, this is what we do — we unite and we figure out how to help this family as best as we can, to show them there are really good people out here, and hopefully they will feel that love from us,”event coordinator Ma’o Tosi of AK Pride told the Anchorage Daily News.
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| Ma’o Tosi with a local deejay |
How do we celebrate life Alaska-style after a crushing event like this?
We gather together. We give together. We grieve together.
Money won’t bring back the deceased, or give a young couple their toddler’s innocence back. But hundreds of strangers joining hands and giving of their resources will likely go a long way to helping the family heal.
This is what we do.