LOrdinarily, “March Madness” means just one thing to me. Basketball. Not this year.
Many of you know that I currently reside in Colorado. What is not widely known is that I live about 20 minutes from the scene of our country’s latest mass tragedy. This one in Boulder. At an ordinary grocery store in a shopping center I’ve passed innumerable times on the way to pick up my grandsons from school.
I learned of what happened on an otherwise ordinary Monday afternoon last week when relatives, friends, colleagues began to call or send emails asking if I was ok. I turned on the tv. The following hours became a succession of days sitting immobile on the couch. Without even sufficient energy to escape into the fictional world of novel writing or reading, I watched local officials hold daily press conferences. As if their adding the latest details would subtract some of the shocked grief. Instead, multiplying it.
One of the 10 individuals who lost their lives that day was a Boulder policeman, one of three first responders, who ran straightaway into the grocery store and an assassin’s gunfire. To protect those inside. Officer Eric Talley was immediately killed. He leaves behind a wife and seven children.. That information struck way too close to home. As the mother of five now-adult children, I found myself identifying, with that widowed mother. My heart aches for what she is going through.
Three days after the shootings, my youngest son called to tell me about an act of kindness that had just been performed by an organization exceptional in both origin and mission. I verified the story by calling them.
The Back Story
Back in the late 1970’s, a husband and wife died within a year and a half of each other, leaving seven children, the youngest of whom was eight years old. The six older siblings became in loco parentis for their youngest brother. By the time he was 34, Stephen was married, the father of five children, a dedicated firefighter assigned to Brooklyn’s Squad 1.
On 9/11/2001, he was on his way to a day of golfing with his older brothers when he heard over his scanner about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. Stephen returned to his station, donned fire-fighting gear including a 60-pound backpack, and drove to the entrance of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, only to find it closed for security reasons He left his car, raced on foot, 60 pounds strapped to his back, into and up the burning North Tower— to help get people out. Until the tower fell on him.
In the months that followed, the six remaining Siller siblings convened, determined to honor their brother’s sacrifice. They created a 5K “Run & Walk or Tower Climb,” retracing Stephen’s steps. Their idea continues to draw participants from throughout the U.S. and countries beyond. Teams of firefighters, police, highway patrolmen, first responders, veterans…
Further, the Siller Siblings established a foundation. Their mission: to honor the sacrifice of their brother and military and first responders who continue to make the supreme sacrifice of life and limb for our country.
Today
By the end of 2020, TunneltoTowers Foundation reported anticipating $250 million raised since their inception twenty years ago. This past week, only a few days after the Boulder shooting, the Foundation paid the remainder of the home mortgage for the family of Officer Talley. For more information about the Foundation, fundraising events, or ways to get involved, go to www.tunnel2towers.org
I can’t say that this story took me totally beyond March 2021’s madness and sadness. But today, on the day the Boulder community gathers virtually and in person for Officer Talley’s funeral, I am able to find a ray of that once-ordinary gladness.
For Love prevails, stronger than evil.
Goodness, kindness, generosity and sacrifices continue in people too numerous to count.
And where for several days feelings of helplessness and hopelessness had threatened, there’s now a rising sense of Hope.
