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Be Brave and Be Kind

AMIE WINDSOR
GAZETTE PUBLISHER

Dear Reader

As I write this, my very first Dear Readers column as the new publisher of the Sonoma County Gazette, my family is listening to holiday music. The day is October 25. We’re smack-dab in the middle of another Red Flag Warning and the cobwebs (both real and decorative) flapping wildly in the wind next to my pride flag in time to “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” somehow seems appropriate – comforting even.

The Christmas music kicked on after our kiddos, deep in imaginative play, declared they were a vampire and fairy and were having a holiday party and that they couldn’t have a party without music (a valid pre-req.) We threw our “live in the present moment” mantra out with the howling wind and let ourselves get wrapped up in the comfortable crooning of Bing Crosby and cloud-high pitches of Mariah Carey. And of course, nothing says Christmas like Raffi (I am a mom of two girls; ages 3 and 6 after all). Their voices make me feel all the holiday feelings, especially that are forged here in Sonoma County.

The Sonoma Snow -- or ash -- is the closest thing my kids know to the real stuff. Maybe Christmas song weren’t the most inappropriate thing to bust out after all?
The Sonoma Snow -- or ash -- is the closest thing my kids know to the real stuff. Maybe Christmas song weren’t the most inappropriate thing to bust out after all?

If you’re like me, the holidays mean we’ve made it past the hard part. We made it past fire season. Past the worst part of the heartache. Past looking at the go bags, the election ballot, the dwindling bank account or whatever it is that scares you right in the eye and saying, “Tuwanda!”

While channeling our favorite Kathy Bates character is one way to deal with this constant drain on our energy that this fall has been, I find a better way to rise to the occasion is to return to a lesson my husband taught me in our first year of marriage: I remember to be brave and be kind. It can be really hard to be both. OK. It IS really hard to be both. But if it is one thing I’ve learned in my five years about being in Sonoma County, it is that this community is really good at being both. I have witnessed community members and leaders showing bravery through simple acts of kindness.

Be brave and be kind -- its a Windsor Family mantra and one that has only solidified with time spent living in Sonoma County.
Be brave and be kind -- its a Windsor Family mantra and one that has only solidified with time spent living in Sonoma County.

In our divided, polar culture, it sometimes does take bravery to be and show kindness. Yet every November, Sonoma County comes together usual by way of recovery and resiliency, for its annual season of bravery and kindness. I’m grateful to live in a community that steps up and supports one another in such time of heartache, grieving, uncertainty and strife.

As we go into the November elections, we need bravery and kindness now more than ever in our community. The COVID-19 pandemic has taken the lives of nearly 150 of our local community members and has touched every single one of their families. Fires have burned thousands of acres in Sonoma County this year, razing over 500 houses in both Santa Rosa and deep in west county. The heartache, grief, uncertainty and strife is palpable enough without the weight of elections hovering upon our shoulders.

Remember, if we’re all brave and kind, it’s something to be thankful for at our dinner tables this socially-distanced Thanksgiving.

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