Day 147

Dear Mr. President,

I'm not sure what you could have done to please the people who are still complaining about your lack of involvement in the oil spill. Maybe you could have put on scuba gear and patched the leak manually? Anyway, I think that the horror of the situation is not that more could have been done, but that no one knows, exactly, what to do now.

My own world has been very small these last few days. My brother-in-law's father passed away, and so my sister has left her 2-year old son with his aunts and grandmother these last few days. Right now he's not too pleased to be with his aunty and not his mom, but we watched Star Wars together, so I think, on the whole, he's going to be OK with it. I love spending time with my nephew, but I couldn't take this on as a full-time job. This is why I'm so constantly amazed at his Dad, who is not his biological father, but who still has committed himself to raising my nephew as his own. I didn't know his father, who just passed away, but he must have been a good dad himself, to raise such a remarkable son. The kinds of patience and selflessness required to parent a young child are not often seen in my age group, (I certainly don't possess them,) and so I'm always surprised to encounter these qualities in people my own age.

Looking at the world from the perspective of my nephew, who won't even be old enough to vote until 2026, I realize how angry I'd be, if I were him. The world we're leaving his generation is in pretty bad shape, and, as appalling as our mistakes and failures may have been, sometimes its the answers we don't even know we need to look for that scare me the most. One of our uncles in Florida called last week to apologize to my aunt for not taking her diving in the Florida keys last time she visited. He knows now, because of the spill, it's unlikely that they'll be able to do so again in their lifetimes. I've never been to the Florida keys at all, nor have I been to Louisiana, but at least I got a chance to swim in the Gulf of Mexico once, several years ago. I still hold out hope that Asher will have that chance, too.

Anyway, Mr. President, I share your frustration at the lack of progress, and I believe that finding a solution is, for now, more important than finding out who is to blame. I appreciate your continued emphasis on the role BP has in this, as well as you ability to take responsibility for the mistakes of your own administration, and I hope that we take all necessary steps to ensure that this never happens again. My heart is heavy for the people who live in the region, and also for children like my nephew, who will grow up never knowing how it was before this disaster.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey