When I delivered some supplies to River Plantation, one of the hardest-hit regions of my community, I noticed these trucks. I went back to photograph them a week later. A volunteer at the site, when asked about his team's denominational affiliation, said they were a non-denominational organization out of Missouri. He added that this was "a non-denominational flood." They were just there to help people, he said. I loved their slogan: "Honor God. Help People."

The sight of them
burst the unknown dam holding
back a personal flood of tears.  Headed
south on interstate 85. A convoy. SUVs and pick-up trucks, several
hauling
utility trailers.  Emblazoned upon magnetized
signs adhering to the front side doors of each vehicle: “United
Methodist Disaster Relief Team,
Cary, NC.”

Cary is a
suburb of Charlotte.  And Charlotte is the next major city
north of
my hometown of Greenville, SC.  Both I–and
I was certain–the convoy, were following the paved path of four or more
connecting interstates through Atlanta, then Chattanooga, then
Nashville.  The flood waters had mostly receded but our
city’s homes and spirits needed the merciful hands, strong backs and
grace-giving hearts of that team and the hundreds of church and other
volunteer
groups like them.

The day I
passed the convoy, I’d gone home
overnight. Fourteen hours worth of road tripping in two days to pick up
furniture from my deceased mother’s estate for the home that I’ll be
sharing
with The Fiancé when we marry this summer. 
The morning had begun with me trying not to criticize the
reflection of
the woman turning 50 in one month. 
Inside her outwardly disheveled self, her mind reflected on the
oddity that she stood putting on a minimal amount of makeup in the guest
bathroom of her oldest sister’s home.  Her
fiancé was in the room next door.  In the
kitchen were her oldest sister and her husband and her middle sister. 
Their mother had now been dead one-and-a-half
years.  Two mother’s days had come and
gone.  Their father was spending his days
in an assisted living facility swearing to beat the Parkinson’s that had
attacked his once proud body and sharp-witted mind.  Stark
reality….I mulled, during my last ditch
attempts for outward decency: we were no longer the children in this
family.  We were all grown up now,
dispersing the contents of our parents' home into our own. 

A handful
of hours later–after breakfast was eaten
on the run, a visit made to Daddy, supervision given for the loading of
the
rental truck that The Fiancé would drive to Nashville—alone, my quiet
car–lapping the miles ahead of me–became my reservoir for when that
passing convoy
triggered the lock on the dam of my emotions.

The only
thing constant in Life is change, says my
gyn nurse practitioner.  Right now I’m going
through a hefty share of it.  This fall,
I published my first book.  Something–
author/blogger friend Bill Peach  wrote recently–is a continual project that I
keep trying to put a temporary wrap on as the school year ends as a home
of 16
years waits to have its contents packaged and boxed.  Ten
days into June, I mark a half century of
living on Mother Earth and just a tad over one month later, I marry for
the
second time around.  Tucked amid the
celebrations, my only child–whose autism means she faces many
adjustments that
could be even greater in scale for her and thus me and the fiancé—marks
Sweet
16.

All this
change. Hauling my deceased mother’s
furniture to my future home with a new husband. And my city. My city has
suffered so much untold damage. I began sobbing.  I’d
stopped and started crying all for more
than a week since the flood. This time, I could not seem to stop. 
I tried to reach a favorite cousin–a
recently retired chaplain. I needed to process this trauma I felt,
triggered by
those convoying Methodists. I understood it intellectually on many
levels, but
I needed to process it aloud with a compassionate ear. The number I
called was ancient and no longer
applicable. It was the only one I had. 
As if in rescue mode, my memory seemed to yell: “Robbie! Spiritual Director! Robbie! Spiritual Director!”

The baseball field of Edwin Warner Park is one of two sorting sites for the debris that homeowners cleared post flood. The trails of the park, where I walked frequently, are closed due to the damage. But this portion bustles with dump trucks and cranes delivering and sorting the broken material remains of human lives.

So, on a
busy Saturday morning, as she was packing
to leave the country to teach a university study-abroad writing course
in The
Holy Land, I reached one of my best friends. 
Trusted, Robbie held the space for my personal flood of
tears.  In time she shared her own sense of futility
to help so many of our friends that, like me, she learned daily had lost
everything.
 She helped affirm me of the impact of
all the changes in my life that equaled happy yet still induced stress. 
She gave me the insight of the gravity of my
reflection–that my siblings and I were no longer the children of our
family.  That our caretakers had died or were
dying.  Of course I knew that, but on
another level, it was still weighty to process. This was yet another
layer.

My body
was telling me that I needed to stop, said
Robbie.  Grieve!  It demanded.  In
the confines of my car, the long road ahead
of me, the tears I choked back for a week-plus could no longer be
plugged. Ready or not. They came.

Last
week, popular blogger, Suburban
Turmoil, who
also lives in my area of town—one of the areas most affected by the
flood—wrote
in her Nashville Scene column about realizing she had
survivor’s guilt, which
was part of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. 
Reading those words resonated with me. 
I do not believe I have survivor’s guilt in one sense, but saying
that I’ve
been suffering mild PTSD—which I do believe I have–and then feeling
guilty for
saying so…well, that probably is a form of survivor’s guilt. I did not
experience any physical damage to my property. None of the devastating
loss
experienced by so many.  But, it is traumatic
to drive up the main thoroughfare from my end of town and see the
contents of
flooded homes discarded by the road. Furniture. Dry wall. Children's’
toys.
Bicycles. It is traumatic. And, as Robbie explained, I am hurting
because
humanity is hurting. We are All One. When one of us hurts, we all hurt….

“Go ahead
and get it out,” Robbie encouraged. “Cry
those tears. Grieve.”  I did. Given the
flood’s devastation to our city, I’d written on my Face book wall: “My
heart is
breaking.” This friend,
featured here in my blog coverage the second week post-flood
last week, commented in reply: “Let your
heart break.  Go ahead. When hearts are
broken they become open….”

From now through the summer, while I'm
moving, getting married & honeymooning, I'll be posting at a
reduced schedule, aiming for a minimum of two posts weekly on Tuesdays
& Thursdays. Most weeks I'll have an autism/disability specific post
and the other will combine Mondays' "All the Rest of Life" and the
usual "Arts
Friday" themes.