Dear neighbors who live west of us in south Louisiana,
I refer to you as Flood people in my title because that nasty storm that placed you in our club doesn't have an official name. What club you ask? The survivors club. To be more exact, the flood survivors club. There are many, many survivors of lots of things, but this one puts you in the chapter close to mine. See my family and I are Katrina people. A title we resorted to using and which was used by people to describe us in our new surroundings after we had to move "temporarily" to Georgia. It felt at the same time both familiar and foreign to be labeled in that way. Familiar in that I knew there were others like us; foreign because, "How did I get here?"
I say all that because the why and how of the flood may be different for you and for us, but I want you to know I see you. The national news coverage may not. The President may not. People you know from other parts of our country may not, but I do. I see the pictures, and I am taken right back to that time, that place, where my world was shaken like a snow globe. I may not know EXACTLY how you feel or how you are responding to this crazy, mixed-up situation you are in, but I have a guess. Maybe more than others who have never experienced having several feet of water in their houses do.
I know you are reeling. You had tentative plans, just like we all do. "I need to run by the grocery after work.." "School starts next week..." We have a birthday party to go to tomorrow..." "I have some errands to run..." but all that changed when your world stopped turning and you waited anxiously to find out whether your home would flood, while hoping and praying for a miracle. Those moments can only be understood by someone who has also waited, and hoped and prayed.
Those tentative plans were erased and those precious places of respite and comfort became places that were filled with water and you wondered, "What now?" and "Where do we even begin?"
In spite of the national news not seeing you, people outside the flood area did and came together to help. Donations started pouring in by the truck load. As did the words. Those well intentioned words spoken by people who didn't really know what to say, but felt compelled to try to offer comfort. And they mean well. They do. But I bet you have heard at least a million times, "It's just stuff. It can be replaced" or something along those lines. And I bet you smile and agree because it's true, it is just stuff, but I know what you feel inside. I wanted to scream, "BUT IT"S MY STUFF!"
To them it may just look like a muddy couch, but it's where I nursed my babies. It's where I sat on September 11th with my one month old infant and wept and prayed for this broken world in which we were going to raise her. They saw just a recliner but I saw the chair my in-laws and I gave to my husband when he graduated with his PhD. They saw an old antique chest of drawers. I saw the chest that was my husband's grandmother's chest. The one that her in-laws gave her and Norris' granddad when they got married, back before they had TV. For entertainment, they drew a checker board in the bottom of the last drawer so they could play checkers. To the volunteers that came to help us move our stuff out, it was just a cedar chest, but to me it was the keeper of this Air Force kid's childhood memories like a clay bowl I made in Girl Scouts in the 5th grade, and the homecoming corsage my parents gave me my senior year in high school when we were the defending Class B State champions. It held my diplomas from my high school, college and grad school careers. And I wish could replace them, but I can't. My high school closed and consolidated with a neighboring town 8 years ago. It might just be "stuff", but it's my stuff. It all has some sort of sentimental value or it would have been cast aside long before Katrina roared into town. Know what I mean?
After hearing that so many times from unknowing, yet well-intentioned people, I heard something that came from an unexpected source. My brother-in-law, who, to my knowledge had never experienced a flood, said this, "I bet you're tired of hearing it's just stuff. It's not just stuff. It represents who you are, it symbolizes your life." YES! Just yes.
I know you are sorting through your belongings, hoping to salvage as much as you can. Wishing you could have somehow known this was coming. I bet you are wrestling with "I wish I had put these pictures or that item or ____________ (fill in the blank) up high." You may be wrestling with some level of survivor's guilt. While you may have lost everything, you may feel somehow ungrateful for struggling when others had to be rescued from their rooftops but you didn't. I don't know why we discount our own feelings of loss by comparing our situations to others. We may not have had it as bad as some, but loss is still loss. Period. And it hurts.
I bet you are struggling with being a receiver too. It's hard to be on this end of receiving help when you are used to being the giver. I understand. People would ask us what we needed after Katrina and I didn't know how to answer that question. I left with 3 days' worth of clothes when we evacuated. I lost everything else in my wardrobe. I needed some clothes but, how do you ask and not feel greedy for asking? And when all the donations came in, boy, were we grateful. Extremely grateful. We arrived to a house in Georgia to live in that had beds already set up and made with new bedding. We arrived with a pick up truck load of housing items given to replace what we lost in a "wedding shower" of sorts thrown by my husband's home church. And we were so very grateful. But I struggled too. Because while most donations were awesome, we also got a lumpy couch that truly was unsittable, rusty steak knives and various other items that simply were ineffective. I was grateful for the heart behind those donations, but I struggled with frustrations of the extra work involved in making multiple runs to the dump to get rid of what wasn't usable. And I felt guilty about it. Who was I to complain? I was just a Katrina person who should be grateful to get whatever.
I bet you are wondering how the rest of the world can just go on while yours has stopped. I understand. I see you.
I hope, my Flood friends, if you are reading this, that you are encouraged because I found it so indescribably comforting to know that there were people who, like me, had survived a flood and knew what I was experiencing. The people in Georgia were utterly amazing to us. They accepted us and loved us and we are forever grateful for them. But there was something very healing when we would get together with other Katrina people because they just knew. They saw us. They understood. And we didn't have to try to explain. There just weren't enough words.
So just know, I see you. I know. And I am standing in the gap the for you, asking God to comfort you, heal you and bring joy into your life again.
I refer to you as Flood people in my title because that nasty storm that placed you in our club doesn't have an official name. What club you ask? The survivors club. To be more exact, the flood survivors club. There are many, many survivors of lots of things, but this one puts you in the chapter close to mine. See my family and I are Katrina people. A title we resorted to using and which was used by people to describe us in our new surroundings after we had to move "temporarily" to Georgia. It felt at the same time both familiar and foreign to be labeled in that way. Familiar in that I knew there were others like us; foreign because, "How did I get here?"
I say all that because the why and how of the flood may be different for you and for us, but I want you to know I see you. The national news coverage may not. The President may not. People you know from other parts of our country may not, but I do. I see the pictures, and I am taken right back to that time, that place, where my world was shaken like a snow globe. I may not know EXACTLY how you feel or how you are responding to this crazy, mixed-up situation you are in, but I have a guess. Maybe more than others who have never experienced having several feet of water in their houses do.
I know you are reeling. You had tentative plans, just like we all do. "I need to run by the grocery after work.." "School starts next week..." We have a birthday party to go to tomorrow..." "I have some errands to run..." but all that changed when your world stopped turning and you waited anxiously to find out whether your home would flood, while hoping and praying for a miracle. Those moments can only be understood by someone who has also waited, and hoped and prayed.
Those tentative plans were erased and those precious places of respite and comfort became places that were filled with water and you wondered, "What now?" and "Where do we even begin?"
In spite of the national news not seeing you, people outside the flood area did and came together to help. Donations started pouring in by the truck load. As did the words. Those well intentioned words spoken by people who didn't really know what to say, but felt compelled to try to offer comfort. And they mean well. They do. But I bet you have heard at least a million times, "It's just stuff. It can be replaced" or something along those lines. And I bet you smile and agree because it's true, it is just stuff, but I know what you feel inside. I wanted to scream, "BUT IT"S MY STUFF!"
To them it may just look like a muddy couch, but it's where I nursed my babies. It's where I sat on September 11th with my one month old infant and wept and prayed for this broken world in which we were going to raise her. They saw just a recliner but I saw the chair my in-laws and I gave to my husband when he graduated with his PhD. They saw an old antique chest of drawers. I saw the chest that was my husband's grandmother's chest. The one that her in-laws gave her and Norris' granddad when they got married, back before they had TV. For entertainment, they drew a checker board in the bottom of the last drawer so they could play checkers. To the volunteers that came to help us move our stuff out, it was just a cedar chest, but to me it was the keeper of this Air Force kid's childhood memories like a clay bowl I made in Girl Scouts in the 5th grade, and the homecoming corsage my parents gave me my senior year in high school when we were the defending Class B State champions. It held my diplomas from my high school, college and grad school careers. And I wish could replace them, but I can't. My high school closed and consolidated with a neighboring town 8 years ago. It might just be "stuff", but it's my stuff. It all has some sort of sentimental value or it would have been cast aside long before Katrina roared into town. Know what I mean?
After hearing that so many times from unknowing, yet well-intentioned people, I heard something that came from an unexpected source. My brother-in-law, who, to my knowledge had never experienced a flood, said this, "I bet you're tired of hearing it's just stuff. It's not just stuff. It represents who you are, it symbolizes your life." YES! Just yes.
I know you are sorting through your belongings, hoping to salvage as much as you can. Wishing you could have somehow known this was coming. I bet you are wrestling with "I wish I had put these pictures or that item or ____________ (fill in the blank) up high." You may be wrestling with some level of survivor's guilt. While you may have lost everything, you may feel somehow ungrateful for struggling when others had to be rescued from their rooftops but you didn't. I don't know why we discount our own feelings of loss by comparing our situations to others. We may not have had it as bad as some, but loss is still loss. Period. And it hurts.
I bet you are struggling with being a receiver too. It's hard to be on this end of receiving help when you are used to being the giver. I understand. People would ask us what we needed after Katrina and I didn't know how to answer that question. I left with 3 days' worth of clothes when we evacuated. I lost everything else in my wardrobe. I needed some clothes but, how do you ask and not feel greedy for asking? And when all the donations came in, boy, were we grateful. Extremely grateful. We arrived to a house in Georgia to live in that had beds already set up and made with new bedding. We arrived with a pick up truck load of housing items given to replace what we lost in a "wedding shower" of sorts thrown by my husband's home church. And we were so very grateful. But I struggled too. Because while most donations were awesome, we also got a lumpy couch that truly was unsittable, rusty steak knives and various other items that simply were ineffective. I was grateful for the heart behind those donations, but I struggled with frustrations of the extra work involved in making multiple runs to the dump to get rid of what wasn't usable. And I felt guilty about it. Who was I to complain? I was just a Katrina person who should be grateful to get whatever.
I bet you are wondering how the rest of the world can just go on while yours has stopped. I understand. I see you.
I hope, my Flood friends, if you are reading this, that you are encouraged because I found it so indescribably comforting to know that there were people who, like me, had survived a flood and knew what I was experiencing. The people in Georgia were utterly amazing to us. They accepted us and loved us and we are forever grateful for them. But there was something very healing when we would get together with other Katrina people because they just knew. They saw us. They understood. And we didn't have to try to explain. There just weren't enough words.
So just know, I see you. I know. And I am standing in the gap the for you, asking God to comfort you, heal you and bring joy into your life again.