I saw Elvis in Tupelo today — or at least his statue. A few miles away, I saw dozens of tornado-damaged homes. Decades-old trees were like scattered Lincoln Logs. Piled nearby, dreams filled dumpsters in driveways.
Yet with a mix of grit and nails, the community is coming back.
Across the state, I stood on a Mississippi River sandbar as two barges passed quietly in the night. Above my head, the Milky Way dressed up the inky sky with a trillion pearls. I met with Congressional staffers and discussed politics while a bonfire flickered. Blood-sucking mosquitoes had to make them miss Washington, D.C. On the rural highways between my destinations, I saw signs. Lots of signs. Noxapater. Egypt (in two different places). Farrell. Tupelo. Tutwiller. Yazoo City. Clarksdale, Eagle Lake. Near Eagle Lake, the dusky dawn sky’s canvas was painted red by the brush of a rising sun. That same sun gilded the river water with gold leaf. Nearby, white cotton boils played hide and seek beneath thick green leaves. Fields of corn stalks withered in the August sun. Off Highway 49, a bright red truck sat in the middle of a green soy bean field. Bugs sang as a yellow crop-duster danced in the Delta sky.
In the hundreds of miles I traveled this week, I encountered extreme poverty and equally extreme wealth.
I met barge captains who wrestle a changing Old Man river daily. And I met medical insurance professionals wrestle equally changing health care laws. I spoke to hundreds of people and heard their stories of hope and courage. I met a mother who lost a child eight years ago. “I’ll see him again,” she said with confidence. Her faith even buoyed me. On my radio show, I interviewed a woman who challenged her childhood memories and gained empathy as her reward.
Today, a community struggles with the loss of an exceptional young man. Like the tornado scars in Tupelo, time, faith and friends will heal those wounds. But right now, it seems senseless. Raw. Harsh. Too painful. The community has already begun to rally. Just like we always do. When things get bad, we get good.
That’s what I’ve seen in my last five days in Mississippi.
Wow Marshall encouraging picture well painted with words