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Editor’s note: Sharon Bailey is an opinion columnist for the Niagara Gazette and the Lockport-Union Sun & Journal. Her views expressed in this commentary are her own. Read more opinions on CNN.
CNN
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My hometown of Buffalo has certainly endured grief this past year.
In May, a white shooter walked into a Tops supermarket in the city’s Masten neighborhood, a historically African-American community, and killed 10 people in a racist attack.
Last month, a blizzard known as the 22-year Blizzard claimed dozens of lives in Buffalo and its First Ring suburbs, costing thousands of people power outages, shutting down businesses for days, and clogging roads with disabled vehicles. When I let it go, misery piled up misery.
Today, the City is grappling with the near-fatal injury of a player on our beloved Buffalo Bills football team. Safety Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest during Monday night’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals. Thankfully, his prognosis is moving in a positive direction, but this terrifying moment hit a city that was already scarred. Hmm.
The collective pain is almost unbearable. Still, that’s the kind of adversity Buffalonians are well-trained to deal with.
Yes, tragedies sometimes make Buffalo national news.
Case in point: Long before the May 14 Tops Supermarket shooting, Bill’s Safety’s Micah Hyde scheduled a charity softball game and silent auction to donate to his Imagine for Youth Foundation.
In what seemed like an unfortunate coincidence, his event was set for May 15, the day after the shooting. Donated to the victim’s family.
Stories of the Good Samaritan and heroic stories like that are nothing new to me. In 2017, I moved to Niagara Falls, NY, 20 miles north of Buffalo, but grew up in the heart of the Black community, just two blocks from a Tops supermarket.
I have experienced devastating blizzards in Buffalo, including the 1977 “October 2006 Surprise” and two “Snovembers” in 2000 and 2014. Each time, I was able to see first-hand the goodness of West New York residents. A specialty of Buffalo, especially during the legendary winter months. Our job is to help each other.
Much of the country has heard of a particular hero of last month’s blizzard: Jay Withey, a mechanic in the nearby town of Cheektowaga, who embarked into the December blizzard to help a trapped friend, only to find himself in a blizzard. I got myself caught in the snow.
With his resourcefulness, he managed to break into the school building and take refuge with not only his rescued friends, but also twenty or so other people he had saved from the storm. Without his quick thinking, many, if not all, would surely have died.
Buffalo people don’t wait for cavalry. they are cavalrymen.
Here’s another thing we Buffalo people do: We find a little bit of sunlight in our darkest moments.
This NFL season, the Bills faced the Chicago Bears on Christmas Eve, one day after a snowstorm. The whole city rejoiced when the Bills beat the Bears 35-13. That was true whether you were lucky enough to watch the game without a power outage, or if you monitored the action via a transistor radio you pulled out of the attic.
For many Western New Yorkers, the bill is a spark in good times and bad, win, lose, and draw. As we monitor and draw inspiration from Hamlin’s continued recovery, this has never been more true.
People around the world are praying for Hamlin’s assigned jersey number #3, but collective prayers are as fervent as those of us who love and support the team whose name adorns the front of his jersey. There is no place to be. And we will remain vigilant for him until he is fully recovered. That’s what the people of Buffalo do, especially one of our own.
There are many adjectives used to characterize Buffalonians. We are described as ‘flexible’, ‘tough’ and ‘strong’. And we are. Our nickname, ‘City of Good Neighbors’, fits perfectly.
But if I had to choose another catchphrase that people in the region often adopt, it would be “Please wait.” Wait for the next adversity to come. The same is true for recovering from any blows that fate has inflicted on us.
The blizzard was a tragedy beyond words. In a way, it’s not done with us yet, as we’re working through our collective loss and grief. It was given to me.
Within a week, power was restored to most homes, supermarkets reopened, and local authorities reduced travel bans to travel advisories or lifted them altogether. The freezing temperatures dropped, the temperature was near 50 degrees, and the snow melted.
So we survived Snowmageddon. But it’s only in January. It looks like the snow will continue. wait for it.
Until last week’s tragedy, the Bills had been doing pretty well this season. Fueled by their inspiration and love for their beloved teammate Hamlin, they just might make the Super Bowl again. or – wait for it – likely to collapse early in the playoffs.
Whenever the next shoe falls – and wait for itbecause it will be — we Buffalonians don’t dwell on what we can’t control, and instead of acting on what we can do, we survive the best way we know how.
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