The Long Day

Ron’s alarm went off at 2:30 a.m. and I jumped. It felt as if I’d just fallen sleep after getting home from Garrison Keillor, which was mostly true. We dressed quickly, grabbed the cats and climbed into the already loaded Odyssey. Ron drove. I tried to get back to sleep, without success. It can be hard to sleep when your heart is heavy. It was a long drive, the beginning of an even longer day.

Upon arrival we put the cats in the guesthouse, which had blessedly been unaffected by the flooding water. I braced for our first real look at the damage to the main house at Sanctuary. Luke had sent photos, and they looked pretty bad. This mantra played in my mind:  expect it all to be lost.

The work crew was there removing all, yes ALL, the contents of the house.  Thrift store treasures. Family heirlooms. Our ‘wedding’ dishes. Everything we had collected, piece by piece, and brought up from San Diego, load by load, to make Sanctuary a home. They covered the blacktop driveway with heavy plastic sheeting and were carefully carrying our belongings out. As we entered the door and headed downstairs, hope stirred. The kitchen wasn’t moldy, as I’d been told! Luke and Sandee’s old table and chairs looked okay! Grandpa’s old bookcase that I love, and his old radio/record player that Ron loves, looked dry and mold free. The weight on my heart lifted just a bit.

What a job for the work crew! As I told them how grateful we were for their help, one young man said he was very glad to have the work. For most of them, English was difficult. A grandmother from Guatemala shared stories of missing her mother, how she couldn’t afford to go home to see her before she died. She was the one who later, very gently, brought me to the section of belongings that she believed to be unsalvageable. I pulled my harp stool next to my harp in the ‘lost’ collection and sat down. I ran my hands over the neck and pillar. They were rough to the touch. I slid my hands down each side of the soundbox, feeling the wood curve where it should have been straight. That was when I knew for certain it was beyond salvage, and I was sad.

But a harp can be replaced.  A mother cannot. I tried to keep things in perspective. I am a sojourner, a traveler. These thoughts braced me throughout the day.

We asked what things we could take out of the house to use in the guesthouse. Their answers weren’t clear. Everything they removed would have to be certified mold-free before they could bring it back in. If we took things out, there was no such guarantee. In the end, we grabbed almost all of our clothes and put them in the mudroom to wash before bringing them into the guesthouse. I didn’t trust them with my quilts. That is not to say they didn’t know what to do with them. It is just that I didn’t trust them. My quilts represent comfort as well as beauty to me. So I gathered them all, even the sopping wet one from the back of the couch-turned-giant-sponge, whose color had bled. I would wash them, too, myself.

It was hard to think. I grabbed pans but forgot their lids. I took canned food and food stored in my collection of glass jars. As I moved things into the guesthouse I kept forgetting where I had put things. Evidently a cocktail of fatigue and shock and sorrow aren’t good for my brain.

I thought of how many times I had puzzled over how to remove all that wallpaper, all 18 different kinds, the stuff that was now coming off by the sheet in some rooms; how I had always wanted to take a ‘vacation’ and sleep in the guesthouse. They say we should be careful what we wish for. But I can’t believe that this is some bizarre way of God granting these relatively unimportant wishes.

The workers finish up their day’s work and will return tomorrow to carry still more things out, clean each of them, wrap them in bubble wrap and a tough, giant size plastic shrink-wrap. They look like giant cocoons out there on the driveway, waiting to hatch. The unsalvageable items don’t get this treatment. They are put in the moving van last, such sad-looking things. The couch, one of the few brand new things we had purchased, releases a river of water streaming out the back of the truck and down to the driveway.

At last it is quiet. We build a fire in the guesthouse woodstove and find rest for our exhausted minds, hearts and bodies.

Amazingly, it is still well with my soul.