When A Natural Disaster Hits: The Distance Between Us
On Friday July 20th, Central Kentucky was hit with a historically damaging storm that created widespread wind and water damage to hundreds of area households. Until 4:52 PM of that particular day, I had the luxury of interior climate control to regulate the unrelenting humidity of a Kentucky summer. My home had electricity, running water and an intact roof, which created a comfortable material and emotional barrier between myself and the widows we serve in Guatemala and Egypt.
When A Natural Disaster Hits, The Distance Between Us Becomes Very Short.
At 4:53 PM my roof suddenly hosted an eighty year old tree that gave way to the near hurricane forced wind that swept through the city. The window that was keeping out sheets of rain lay in hundred of pieces inside the house. In the space of sixty seconds, I lost power, climate control, and rain protection. My roof had two holes where there had previously been nicely arranged shingles. I was essentially and suddenly living, if but briefly, the life that our organization works to improve for the widows in our program. The distance between us was now measured in the length of the tree that penetrated my home.
Here is what I now fully and acutely understand: The space between “them” and “me” is as delicate as a dollar bill held over an open flame. When the natural light of a stormy day fades to the color of fear, and an empty house is filling with rain water, mosquitoes and a darkness too thick to penetrate, there is no longer a boundary between the Executive Director of our program and the women we serve in North Africa and Guatemala. In that moment, and the three days that followed, I figuratively walked with Cristina and Eman. As I searched for candles, plugged up leaking holes and planned how to communicate with absent family members, I was mentally and emotionally transported to the steep inclines of Guatemala where I knew that one of our widows named Cristina was doing the same. While fighting the stifling heat and humidity of a house without climate control, I remembered struggling to breathe while visiting Eman’s airless apartment in the slums of Cairo last August. All of the activities of daily living involved more planning, energy and time than I would have thought possible. Simple household tasks became cumbersome to finish in the thickness of the interior dark. So they didn’t get done. Food preparation, which had never been a favorite chore, was relegated to whatever was available, not necessarily palatable. The dogs, sensing my distraction, knew enough to keep their issues to themselves. Hygiene took a back seat to more important concerns like household security. Very little that had held significance before the storm seemed important during the few days that followed.
Asserting that I was in any way a breath away from a life of poverty is ludicrous. But for a brief three days, I understood that the languor I witnessed in our FFF widows was essentially a substitute for fatigue. And in a way I could not have previously realized, an unkempt widow’s house will no longer represent apathetic housekeeping attitudes, but simply a prioritization of personal energy. When Cristina’s kitchen is less than organized, or Eman’s bedroom appears chaotically arranged, I will enter into that space with the knowledge that my standards of housekeeping are as fragile as my link to my own reality of normal.
Sometimes it takes a big tree to create a little understanding.