For a month, I have watched and read in horror. I have heard frightening statistics about the number of gallons that were spilled. I have seen pictures of the animals who have been hurt or killed. I have been rendered speechless time and time again.

I think I’m done being quiet now.

Four years ago this week, I was in the process of driving a moving van to New Orleans to start my life there. Just a few months prior, we had visited Galveston for the first time, and I set eyes on the Gulf for the first time. A few months later, my husband and I drove hundreds of miles next to the crystal blue water, next to the clean white sand on our first trip to Florida. The majesty of the Gulf of Mexico stretched on as far as the eye could see.

For 3 years I called the South my home, and the Gulf of Mexico was my sanctuary. It was one of the places I could go to feel at peace, to hear the sound of waves crashing, to smell the salt in the air. I’ve sat out on those beaches a few times now and no picture will ever do justice to the beauty that is held there.

It houses more than memories, it houses animals, it houses ecosystems, it houses financial lifelines for many who live in the South. It’s not just a body of water or just a pretty vacation spot. It’s more than that.

And it’s dying. It’s being demolished by oil, by a spill that shouldn’t have happened, a spill that continues to gush oil into that water at this very moment. This isn’t about politics, it isn’t about a company and what they should or could have done.

It’s about the Gulf of Mexico. It’s about the animals and the people that rely on it. It’s about the memories it holds. It’s more than water and sand. It’s the Gulf, and it’s dying.

What are you doing about it?

(More love the gulf posts can be found here or here or here.)

Donations can be made at a number of sites depending upon where you are interested in making a difference. The Audubon Institute of Louisiana, the American Bird Conservatory, The Greater New Orleans Foundation and Oceana. I’m sure there are many more, but you gotta start somewhere.

Share this on

5 Responses to “Southern Sanctuary”