Beauty From Ashes

I will not soon forget this past week. In fact, I probably won't ever. The days were long although the week passed quickly. I feel like I have experienced nearly every emotion that humans are capable to feel. It was a tragic week, and a wonderful week all wrapped into one.
It all started last Saturday (May 1). It rained literally ALL DAY LONG without stopping. By that evening, Nashville had already received nearly a foot of rain.  As is normal when we have heavy rains, Servpro started getting a lot of calls so we cancelled our plans for the evening and Rob went in to work. No biggie; it happens. He got home late, and got up early on Sunday to go back. The local news stations were asking people to stay off the roads if possible, so Sydney & I decided to stay home instead of going to church. Around 7:30 or 8:00 Sunday morning, the power went out. I was constantly looking out our back door, and eventually noticed the river. Granted, there has been a small river, the Harpeth, running out behind our neighborhood the entire time we've lived here (and longer!), but last Sunday morning was the first time I was ever able to see it from my house. I started getting a little nervous.

Immediately, I started thinking about all the times my family evacuated for hurricanes when I was a kid. My parents' strategy was simple- they packed our clothes and important stuff from the house. My sisters and I each got a plastic tub to fill with whatever was important to us... scrapbooks, softball trophies, Barbies- the contents were up to us. But we could only have one tub. As I began to think that I might need to leave if the river continued rising, my mind raced over all the things I would need to throw in the car. Clothes. Diapers. Our camera & laptops. Cash. I called Rob and told him I felt like maybe it was crazy, but I wanted to pack a few things. He agreed that it was a good idea, and told me to get everything loaded up and come to meet him at his office. I put Syd down for her morning nap and frantically started throwing things into bags and the back of my car. I called Rob a short while later, my anxiety growing and asked him if he was absolutely confident that Sydney & I could make it to him. He wasn't. He said he would come get us. (It was still storming at this point, and rain had been falling for over 24 hours.) Rob tried every possible route over the next hour, and hit one dead end after another. Backroads were completely flooded, and the Interstate had become a parking lot. There was no way anyone could get into or out of our neighborhood. We were stuck.

I had been trying to conserve my cell phone battery, texting instead of talking, but those bars on the screen disappeared quickly until I was down to one. I thought I was going to have to call Rob and tell him, a la Jack Bauer, "I'm going dark." Instead, survival mode kicked in so I got Sydney and an umbrella and went out knocking on my neighbors' doors, asking them if they had a car charger for a Samsung phone that I could borrow. At the fourth house, I found one. Hallelujah! I was still scared, but at least I wouldn't be totally on my own if I could talk to Rob.

That day was perhaps the longest ever in my thirty years- even longer than the day Sydney was born. All we could do was sit in the dark, wait, play, wait, pray, and wait some more. Throughout the day, we watched the rain continue to fall and the river continue to rise.

* All of these pictures were taken during the day from our patio.

Eventually the rain stopped and we ventured out of the house to get some fresh air and exercise, and see for ourselves what we were facing. Most of our neighbors were out too; everyone was talking about whether or not they thought the water would rise all the way up to our houses. It was already several feet into the homes in a lower section of our neighborhood. Someone told me I should go home and move all my valuables upstairs, "just in case". I patted Sydney's back and told them that as long as she was safe, everything else in the house could float away. And I meant it. We took one last stroll down the street at dusk; the river was about ten houses down from us. I think the scariest part of the whole ordeal was going to bed on Sunday night unsure if we'd have water in our house when we woke up.
It was a long night with not much sleep and a tiny foot jabbed in my neck for most of it (Sydney wasn't sleeping well so I brought her into our room and we layed down together on Rob's side of the bed). Morning came, though, and the river was already dropping. Our house was still dry, but dozens of others in our neighborhood were not. Several friends from church had as much as 4 feet of water in their homes. The house Rob & I tried to buy when we first got married was under water.
Survivor's guilt is not fun. God spared us to use us, though. On Tuesday, our house became command central for our church, serving meals to the families & volunteers working in our subdivision. By Wednesday, people had stopped ringing the doorbell and were letting themselves in. Sydney took on the ministry of offering smiles, thereby bringing out lots of smiles from others.
There's a positive side to the story too. Our community bonded like we never have. The city of Nashville stepped up and people have cared for friends and strangers well. The river went down and our neighborhood was quickly flooded with volunteers offering help. Neighbors that used to keep to themselves now knock on doors just to check on nearby families. I bought lemonade from four small kids in their driveway trying to raise money for flood victims. I came home from church yesterday to find our yard had been mowed- it's no secret to anyone around here how busy Rob has been. A local television station held a flood relief telethon and over $1.7 million dollars were raised. Beauty is rising from the ashes.
The long, harrowing week ended on Mother's Day. No, it didn't exactly look like the idyllic scene from all the jewelry store commercials. In fact, some people might have been frustrated that their husband had to work on Mother's Day and they were "stuck with the kids again" when all they really wanted was a break. I chose to see it from the other side. When Rob offered to get up and cook a big breakfast, I refused, and told him what I really wanted was for him to rest and spend some time with Sydney before he went to work and we went to church. And I got to spend a fantastic morning at home eating refrigerated cinnamon rolls with the two people I love most in this world- the two people who made me a mother. Syd & I relaxed on a blanket in the front yard for a while after church, and she laughed and laughed at me. No one could have bought me a better gift. It was the perfect ending to a not-so-perfect week.