By ROBERT JUMPER
Tutiyi (Snowbird) and Clyde, N.C.
Many of you are aware that last year, on Sept. 25, Hurricane Helene made its presence felt in the mountains of western North Carolina. Many said that they had never seen anything like it. Surely, the town where I live, Clyde, has seen its share of mud and flood events over the last several years. My little home had skirted the fate that many of the homes in that little town had met for many years. But on this day, the home that my wife and I had enjoyed for over three decades was inundated with stormwater and mud, along with a car that had been left behind due to my attachment to history. I didn’t think we were close enough to the river for flooding that had taken so many homes before. We were.
Due to the massive efforts of family, friends, churches, charitable groups, and yes, even governmental organizations, who supported us getting our feet back under us, and above all, through the grace of God, we have stepped back into a somewhat normal life. It can never be what it was before, but when has any life ever stayed the same? Change is a relentless part of life and is a constant companion to us as we travel through.
We stayed in hotels for weeks and in a rental property for months while we organized our thoughts and resources and discussed next steps. Initially, it was about cleaning up and salvaging the things that the flood didn’t destroy or render unusable.
Like many of you, we worked for years to build up a life at our home, which was in ruin from the disaster. Neither of us came from backgrounds where our families had the means to give us a house. We worked our way through, saving to make a down payment, then working through the many common trials of life that families face daily, weekly, and so on. Through job losses and illnesses, our little home served as a refuge from those trials. It was our protection from the storms of life. Ironically, it was a storm that destroyed our sanctuary called home.
At our age, the devastation could have been insurmountable. This little house was what gave us our sense of place for over 30 years. It wasn’t long after we married that we began the journey to what would become our home. It was exciting for us to have land and a house to call our own, even though it would be years before we could really claim ownership. I used to tell my wife, it wasn’t much, but it was ours.
One of the great takeaways from the flood that took our home was the knowledge that material things accumulate in your life without you even knowing it. I hoarded things that I totally forgot I had in a very short period, much more than I needed. As we were separating things into salvageable and trash, we were amazed at the “things” that were at our home that we should have let go of over the years.
And over the past year, my wife and I have had the joy of letting go of things that really don’t matter and learning to cherish the things that do matter, like friends and family. We are back to building life again, being a little choosier about the material things that we let matter in our lives.
I am reminded how blessed and fortunate we are every time I make a trip down to the old property and see so many houses that are shells of the homes that they used to be. I am humbled to know that there are so many with fewer resources. Even now, I pull into the supermarket and see cars jam-packed with trash bags of clothing and family treasures, their owners still searching for their place to call home, even after a year of searching.
I have mentioned before how the biggest thing Helene took from us is our sense of place, our sense of normalcy. You don’t take for granted the little things in your life that you completely ignored before. I know so many people in western North Carolina continue to struggle to get their normalcy back to whatever degree that we are able. And as bad as it has been for us in our neck of the woods. There are so many others who suffer daily in other states and countries from one catastrophe or another. It is humbling to see how much suffering really is going on that stays in the background until it touches a family member, a friend, or you. And see how important that network of people who care is when you are the one waiting for relief.
I know that my wife and I, along with many other western North Carolinians, will never forget the events and aftermath of September 25 and Hurricane Helene.
A blunder on Jan. 13, 2018, caused the official state emergency alert system in Hawaii to issue the following message to cell phones and other media devices: “Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii, seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill.”
The accounts that followed would remind you of what happened during the 1938 broadcast of War of the Worlds on the radio. Back then, several listeners were convinced of a Martian invasion by the excellent radio theatre of Orson Welles. Panic ensued in Hawaii after the alert was announced. People were running from the beaches to seek shelter. Parents were sticking their children in manholes on the street. Earlier drill instructions explained that once this type of warning was issued, citizens had just 10 or 12 minutes to find shelter before detonation. And the citizenry assumed that these missiles would be nuclear.
One resident believed that the end had arrived and that he was living his final moments on earth. The citizen was Jim Carrey, a famous comedian and actor. These are his words recorded in The Hollywood Reporter, “My brain started winding. I didn’t want to die in my car. Then I just had a moment when I looked out into the ocean and pondered what I could do with the last moment of my time. I just decided to go over a list of gratitude. I could not stop thinking about the wonderful things that have happened to me and the blessings that I’ve had. It was lovely, and I got to a point of grace with two minutes to spare when I learned the missile was a false alarm. I have been pounded by life several times. When you survive that, sooner or later, you’re an experienced person, and if it doesn’t kill you, you start to see things for what they really are. You’re stronger from it.”
“I wish everybody could get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so that they can see that’s not the answer.” The wisdom of King Solomon in modern-day language from a comedian.
I pray that I never forget the God that saw us through, the family, friends, and organizations that were there in our time of need. I don’t know what will happen next. I pray that we will never forget those who were lost because of Hurricane Helene and the suffering that continues from it. And I pray we never forget the grace we all have received in the wake of such a shocking and life-changing event. This is certainly not a happy anniversary in the strict definition of happy, but at least it is a peace-filled time of remembrance. Be grateful for grace and be strong in resolve to make the best of what happens next.
