At press time, 21 miners are out. Seeing the first one emerge last night was something I’ll never forget, just like I’ll never forget when Baby Jessica came out of the well. There are a lot of similarities between the miners and Baby J:
--Both were trapped underground
--Both were rescued through a small hole
--Both rescues were witnessed around the world
--Both rescues turned into a media circus
And get this:
BOTH HAPPENED THE SAME WEEK!
I figured that out this morning when I was thinking about how much this reminded me of Baby Jessica. Then I thought, wasn’t it about this time of year that the Baby Jessica event happened? I don’t know how I knew that. (Maybe it’s from blogging about her, like, ten times.)
I looked it up and Jessica fell into the well on 10/14 and was rescued on 10/16. The miners rescue started on 10/12 and will likely go through 10/14, 23 years later.
Darn, just saw that The Washington Post drew the parallel between Baby Jessica and the miners before I did. I’ve been scooped!
So now that all the miners are almost out, what happens next? Well, as for me, I will continue to pray the rosary every day until they are all rescued. Then I will add two more days because I’m two rosaries behind. It has been a really cool experience to pray the rosary every day. My mother-in-law, Joanne, told me that her dad made a deal with God when he was in WWII. He told God that if He let him out of there alive, he would pray the rosary every day for the rest of his life. AND HE DID! I will probably not do it every day but I hope to get it out more often than I did before (which was never, so way more often than that).
As for the miners, I hope that they can weather the media circus they are about to endure with dignity and then get back to their normal lives. However, it seems that these stories usually go more like this:
--Victim is celebrated and given hero-status
--Victim shines during 15 minutes, receives offers of money and fame, makes the talk show rounds
--Public starts to tire of hearing victim’s story, moves on to next story
--Victim screws up: squanders the money, ruins his personal life and/or gets arrested
--Victim is scorned by the public and is no longer the victim
This seems to happen with athletes, especially Olympians (Hello, Michael Phelps, Oksana Baiul). Nancy Kerrigan is a perfect example of an Olympic-victim turned hero turned public enemy. It’s not all the victim’s fault. We love to lift people up and then knock them down.
I really hope (and pray!) that this doesn’t happen to the miners. Take a cue from Baby Jessica, guys. When your 15 minutes is up, just enjoy life above ground.
2 comments:
Watching the first rescuer entering the mine, the first and last miner coming to the top,and finally, the first rescuer returning, was some of the most exciting human drama I've ever witnessed. For a brief period, we were all Chileans.
And speaking of that first rescuer who went down, now that is one brave man! I heard a commentator say that rescue workers are a special breed. That is so true!
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