On August 5, 2010, a mine in Chile suffered a severe cave-in, and 33 miners were trapped. The country was still recovering from an earthquake with a magnitude of 8.8 only 5 months or so early, and tragedy was about to strike again.
The miners had other ideas. They rationed two-to-three-days worth of food to last two weeks, enduring 17 days before being discovered. On October 13, all 33 miners were safely brought to the surface. This is a picture of Luis Urzúa, the shift foreman who took the lead in keeping the miners together and was also the last to exit the mine. Chilean President Sebastián Piñera is on the right.
In our world, there are times when things just keep taking a turn of the worst. Bad break after bad break after bad break. But these hard times bring people together. Families and relatives gathered in the frigid desert outside the mine waiting for the rescue. They formed Camp Hope. This disaster brought together not only husbands and wives and sons and daughters, but it brought together the country, even the world. When Luis Urzúa surfaced, more than one billion people were watching.
When people are together, the pain is there, but there is comfort in knowing that other people empathize. Yes, that doesn't change what has happened. Events cannot be undone, and time cannot by rewound. But cataclysmic events, whether we like it or not, join us as one. And then there are those other stories. The ones we almost never hear about. The ones of which we don't celebrate anniversaries. Stories like the Chilean mining rescue. Grieving creates unity, but celebrating, reveling, rejoicing, that gives birth to a special type of unity. A stronger unity. A unity where we feel we can accomplish anything.
The miners had other ideas. They rationed two-to-three-days worth of food to last two weeks, enduring 17 days before being discovered. On October 13, all 33 miners were safely brought to the surface. This is a picture of Luis Urzúa, the shift foreman who took the lead in keeping the miners together and was also the last to exit the mine. Chilean President Sebastián Piñera is on the right.
In our world, there are times when things just keep taking a turn of the worst. Bad break after bad break after bad break. But these hard times bring people together. Families and relatives gathered in the frigid desert outside the mine waiting for the rescue. They formed Camp Hope. This disaster brought together not only husbands and wives and sons and daughters, but it brought together the country, even the world. When Luis Urzúa surfaced, more than one billion people were watching.
When people are together, the pain is there, but there is comfort in knowing that other people empathize. Yes, that doesn't change what has happened. Events cannot be undone, and time cannot by rewound. But cataclysmic events, whether we like it or not, join us as one. And then there are those other stories. The ones we almost never hear about. The ones of which we don't celebrate anniversaries. Stories like the Chilean mining rescue. Grieving creates unity, but celebrating, reveling, rejoicing, that gives birth to a special type of unity. A stronger unity. A unity where we feel we can accomplish anything.
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