It's been ten months since Hurricane Isaac forever changed our lives. With the help of great friends, family, and church members we were able to get back in our home in record time, but there are still things that haunt us. In the process of gutting and repairing a flooded home the journey of your belongings can be a dizzying thing to keep up with. After throwing out a mountain of furniture, clothes, and personal possessions the remaining things must be moved to make room for repairs. With much help, our remaining possessions made a non-stop journey from room to room. At one time everything was piled into one bathroom, then later all into the garage, and ultimately into the attic. Things were bagged, tagged, boxed, sorted, rearranged, and turned all around.
As I said we moved back in our home in just eleven weeks. The process of unpacking things took much longer. About a week after we were home, my duties at school took me away for an entire day. My wife said she was staying home to find some personal items and our curtains. We had installed all the blinds but we like to sleep in total darkness that the combination of blinds and curtains can make. I text her a few times during the day and she replied, "still in the attic looking for my curtains". I came home to see very little had changed and my wife was visibly upset. When I asked what was wrong she said, "I spent the entire day looking for my living room curtains and they're gone!" Most would say what's the big deal, you had to replace so much other stuff why worry over some curtains. While I will not pretend to know the value that women place on decorating their homes, I can tell you those curtains meant a lot to my wife. Not only did she work hard to make the money to buy these particular curtains, but because I had just had back fusion surgery at the time she had to install them herself. It was one of her many defining touches on our home.
Just the other day while I was sorting through my disaster of a garage. Yes ten months later and things are still in disarray. I came across one of my camping cups. While I have numerous cups, canteens, bottles, and other drinking devices, this cup was a gift. It was given to me by my scouting friends at the first residency camp that I taught at all those years ago. But there was a huge problem when I examined the cup. The enamel inscriptions from my friends designating the particular camp we were at was washed away. The flood waters had very strange and unusual affects on things. There were orange rings around things that did not flood and some but not all TVs played red screens. Some how the flood waters had erased the writing on the cup and now it was just a cup. Isaac had taken my memento of my first residency camp and made it nothing more than a fading memory.
We left our home in the middle of the night when the water first entered. The next morning I ferried my beautiful bride to our house in a flat boat. We waded through our home, surveying the damage with tears in our eyes. As we walked out, we embraced and my wife said something very profound, "It's just things, but it's our things!" While I'm forever grateful for the fact that my family is alive and well, there seems to be a constant reminder of the things we lost. It is remarkable how we attach feelings and memories to things in our homes. Things are just things until they wash away and take with them our bits of life. There is an expression that wounds may heal but scars remain. Our home is repaired and restored but there will always be reminders of the things that did not survive. The curtain, the cup, and many other things are now just holes in our memory.
As I said we moved back in our home in just eleven weeks. The process of unpacking things took much longer. About a week after we were home, my duties at school took me away for an entire day. My wife said she was staying home to find some personal items and our curtains. We had installed all the blinds but we like to sleep in total darkness that the combination of blinds and curtains can make. I text her a few times during the day and she replied, "still in the attic looking for my curtains". I came home to see very little had changed and my wife was visibly upset. When I asked what was wrong she said, "I spent the entire day looking for my living room curtains and they're gone!" Most would say what's the big deal, you had to replace so much other stuff why worry over some curtains. While I will not pretend to know the value that women place on decorating their homes, I can tell you those curtains meant a lot to my wife. Not only did she work hard to make the money to buy these particular curtains, but because I had just had back fusion surgery at the time she had to install them herself. It was one of her many defining touches on our home.
Just the other day while I was sorting through my disaster of a garage. Yes ten months later and things are still in disarray. I came across one of my camping cups. While I have numerous cups, canteens, bottles, and other drinking devices, this cup was a gift. It was given to me by my scouting friends at the first residency camp that I taught at all those years ago. But there was a huge problem when I examined the cup. The enamel inscriptions from my friends designating the particular camp we were at was washed away. The flood waters had very strange and unusual affects on things. There were orange rings around things that did not flood and some but not all TVs played red screens. Some how the flood waters had erased the writing on the cup and now it was just a cup. Isaac had taken my memento of my first residency camp and made it nothing more than a fading memory.
We left our home in the middle of the night when the water first entered. The next morning I ferried my beautiful bride to our house in a flat boat. We waded through our home, surveying the damage with tears in our eyes. As we walked out, we embraced and my wife said something very profound, "It's just things, but it's our things!" While I'm forever grateful for the fact that my family is alive and well, there seems to be a constant reminder of the things we lost. It is remarkable how we attach feelings and memories to things in our homes. Things are just things until they wash away and take with them our bits of life. There is an expression that wounds may heal but scars remain. Our home is repaired and restored but there will always be reminders of the things that did not survive. The curtain, the cup, and many other things are now just holes in our memory.
