Community in Crisis

Petition Update from Change.org/SantaSusana

MAR 17, 2020 — 

I live in a community surrounding the Santa Susana Field Lab, one of America’s worst nuclear disasters. We’ve been dealt health issues, cancer, even death. Yet time and again we’ve become a community of stronger, wiser, kinder people because of the trials we’ve shared.

It’s both beautiful and strange how goodness can manage to survive a crisis when looked for. My daughter’s journey as she fought cancer was the hardest, most painful, and traumatic time of my life. And yet some of the most tender moments of my life happened then. Some of the strongest friendships I now have started then. And most of all, the trivialities of life were purged, and my family and I now focus on what really matters in life, and we are better people for it.

When my daughter relapsed and needed a bone marrow transplant three years later, she was treated in the pediatric isolation ward for two months straight. It was a frightening and lonely time for us.

You were part of the reason we survived. Though you couldn’t fix our situation, your words of encouragement got us through some very hard days. And even though we couldn’t meet face-to-face, your digital friendship broke through the loneliness of isolation. Your prayers and kindness were lighthouses of hope when our life was so dark that we were unable to see tomorrow.

I’d just like to share that encouragement with you, my extended community, as our nation is facing the COVID-19 crisis. We’re together. We matter to each other. And as I pray for each of you and your families to be healthy during this time, even more I pray that we become stronger, wiser, and kinder people because of this trial we’re now sharing.

Godbless.

Melissa Bumstead