Iowa is Drowning

There have been a number of floods and drownings in Iowa in the last 10 days, and I've been watching the news with horror, as I see places like Cedar Rapids go under, and watch people try to salvage something from homes that are now covered in mud and debris.
My friend Roger called several times to tell me of his work sandbagging and helping people evacuate flood areas. Students and professors at the University of Iowa worked side by side for days pulling books out of the U of I library to save them from a watery fate, and there have been others who have tried to save books from the Cedar Rapids library. My mother grew up in small towns around Cedar Rapids, mostly in Monticello and Hopkinton, and she has been very upset about the state of things in her hometown.
I just know that if Muff were still alive, she'd be the first one out there, sandbagging, helping with the injured, saving books and doing whatever she could to help her fellow Iowans during the crisis. That's just the kind of person she was. She believed strongly in community, and in people relying on one another to make it through the hard times. She believed that things happened for a reason, and I know she would also be holding rosaries and lighting candles before mass for the victims of the floods.
When we were at Clarke, Muff was always getting me to sign up for all these humanitarian causes that I'd never heard of, but were integral to her idea of character and conscience. Before I met Muff, I'd never heard of Amnesty International, or Oxfam America, and I'd never worked in a Catholic Relief Workers soup kitchen on a regular basis. My political beliefs were somewhat nebulous, but Muff was having none of that, and would insist that I vote and keep abreast of what was going on locally and internationally.
I sincerely hope that she's working Angel Relief right now in Iowa, helping her brother Michael with the Cedar Rapids library, or giving a glimpse of hope to those who feel they've lost everything in the receeding waters.