Life, Interrupted...post flood musings pt. 2 The Lessons

There is so much to be grateful for during this blessed Advent and Christmas season.

There are people I've grown closer to since the flood, people I knew but may not have known well, or perhaps I knew them well once but had lost touch over the years. Then they showed up, and kept showing up, these people I've learned to see in a new light because of the seemingly unending bounds of their generosity of time, funds and/or spirit. People who made me realize I had a lot to learn about giving and service to others. I am so grateful for the lessons they taught without even realizing it.

And there are some people I was once close to who all but disappeared from our lives since the first weekend in October. This a little harder to understand; I'm tempted to believe maybe not knowing what to do or say or how to help kept them at bay, I don't know. But I'm grateful for their lessons, too, the ones they taught without even realizing it.

So much has changed in the past 10 weeks, and is still changing. Our home looks like someone else's place. We are still settling in to the newness of it all. The last phase - siding replacement - was begun yesterday. So by this time next week, our home will look completely different on the outside as well.

What is to come...

Upgrades, every one. From the new appliances...

This new dishwasher...probably my favorite of all! 

to the new flooring....

The day we came home to this was just....capital!

And yes, it's all very, very good.

It's just also very, very different.

The rest of life did not stand still during this time. During the mix of it all, I turned a year older. So did my son.

Search the blog for my hummingbird cake recipe; it's the boy's favorite!

Fall ebbed into winter. One of my closest friends in the world moved, something I'm still processing has happened. Another announced that she and her spouse are separating and that she is also moving. These changes tear at my heartstrings; both lived a stone's throw from me and were frequent guests for coffee and kitchen table talk.

But there is also joy. A family member married his long-distance love after a three year courtship that involved traveling to another country, a lot of technology, and a hell of a lot of patience. I've been there; I can relate to this and feel overwhelming happiness that these two were able to make it happen. I'm thrilled for them and welcome both her and her child into the family. But for my own reasons, their story tears a little at my heartstrings, too.

Still I am grateful for the lessons all of these occurrences have taught over the past few weeks. The season of Advent is one of my favorites, and it's the perfect time of year to reflect. The flood's aftermath changed my home, my environment, my bank account, my daily routines and my thought processes. As life went on around me during the reconstruction, I changed, too. What seemed like chaos for weeks has now become an opportunity to rebuild, not only our home but my goals for myself and my little family. I can't tell you why, but I can tell you many ideas and ambitions I had before October have fallen by the wayside; they just don't seem important anymore.

The menagerie of photos adds just the right touch of familiarity! 

I think it will take a few more rounds of coffee and hours of kitchen table talk with friends both new and old to close out 2015 and come to terms with all of it's lessons. I think it will take a lot of quiet prayer, meditation and reflection during this Advent season for me to really let go of the old and be ready to focus on the new. I can't sum up why it is that I still feel a little lost, a little stranded, a little alone and 'not myself', but these feelings fade more and more with each passing day.

Outside of my window, birds are singing and the sun is making a glorious December appearance.

There is so, so much to be grateful for.

I wish you all a Blessed Advent and holiday season.

Life, Interrupted....Post Flood Musing, pt. one

There are moments I will never forget...

Going to sleep the night before to the gentle sound of rain.
Waking up to the police banging on our door a few hours later.
The sound of a rain that had become anything but gentle.
The water rising as I was informed we needed to evacuate our home.
The panic.
The sight of a neighbor's car completely submerged in water.
The long, wet ride in the back of a police car with my son, a few bags of clothes, and our terrified dog.
The cold, shaky feeling, once safely ensconced in the home of a friend, that I could not get dry, even after changing into dry clothes.

I know now that feeling is fear, subsiding.

A neighbor took this photo during the early morning evacuations...

Coming home was humbling. Seeing the devastation, the damage that forces beyond our control can wreak, makes one want to simply collapse into a heap on the floor and sob. And I thought about it, the first moment I stepped inside my front door after the flood...but I didn't. I didn't because there simply wasn't time. Like everyone else in the neighborhood, I was immediately thrown into the crux of aftermath, an aftermath in which no one knew, really, what to do, except that things needed to be done, and done fast.

And so we learned. We learned that water damage is minimized the faster you can get drywall and insulation out. So we learned to knock out dry wall and rip out soggy insulation. We learned that linoleum flooring comes up ever so easily when it's wet, and that after a few days, the sound of half a dozen drying fans running full speed becomes simple background noise. We learned that living in one room of the house because the others are uninhabitable or crammed full of salvaged furniture and other items is inconvenient, but entirely possible.

We also learned that letting go, a favorite catch phrase of our time, can create a sense of numbness when you are letting go of so much that it's just impossible to process. In the famed words of Scarlett O'Hara, flawed icon of Southern literature, "I can't think about this now. I'll think of it tomorrow."

When the wrecker came for my car, totaled in the flood, I couldn't think about it then. I couldn't think about it the next day, either, because there was too much to do. Later, when the wreckers came back, and took car after car from our parking lot, and then others came, helpers, offering food, clothing, assistance... I still couldn't think about it.

When my birthday came a couple of days later, I couldn't think about that either. As autumn, my favorite season, passed unnoticed in the weeks that followed, I ran on some kind of auto-pilot, because life, while interrupted, still needed to go on.

Being a single parent can be challenging any given day. But being a single parent during and following a natural disaster can demand you pull from reserves within you that you didn't even know you possessed, because no matter what you as a person are going through in those moments, it's up to you as a parent to hold the universe together for the one (or ones) for whom you are the north star, ever present, never faltering, a guiding light, always reassuring.

And that's exactly what keeps you together - that's where the great reserves of strength come from. That's what gets you through it all. If you are like me, you do exactly what Scarlett O'Hara said, you think about it later, 6 weeks later, when there is not so much to do, when the rain has finally stopped and the sun is shining and the reconstruction is almost completed.

And even though it was weeks ago, and you only lost material things, and you know it could have been a lot worse, you still feel like collapsing into a heap on the floor and sobbing.

But you don't. Instead, you take a deep breath, make another cup of coffee and marvel at the sight of the few remaining brilliant autumn leaves on the tree outside your window, how they glitter almost golden against the backdrop of white clouds and blue sky.

(....to be continued)