We spent part of yesterday cleaning up our yard, piling huge broken branches at the curb for pick up and corralling what leaves we could in bags and cans. We gave up--our yard is full of leaves and our trees haven't even dropped yet; they were all blown in during the storm from other people's trees. They were pretty though--green ones mixed with yellow, red, orange, and maroon.
Then this evening, spurred on by, well, hurricanes and loss, we also purged our upstairs bookcases, removing 4 huge bags of books to donate to our church book sale. Of course, this is in no way directly related to the storm, just our way of reflecting on how unimportant most of the stuff we keep is.
As we reflect on how hard it is to lose the stuff that is important . . . .
The bigger clean-up is happening in the Rockaways at my in-laws' house, where their basement sustained major flooding. Of course, their basement is like our attics and garages in Houston, the repository of all seasonal items plus other storage; theirs was huge and also finished and so had the washer/dryer, sewing machine, off-season clothes, all of Gong's myriad tools and electronics, big box warehouse extras, and years of memories including childhood toys, photo albums, Thailand souvenirs, Christmas decorations, Chinese New Year decorations and singing turtle ("Gong si ni!"), and so much else.
Almost all gone, soaked in saltwater, sand, and sewage. Devastating. We know other people have lost so much more--loved ones, everything material--but this is our loss, shared by all of us, and it's hard.
They had help lugging all their things to the curb, where it will sit until sanitation can come. The entire neighborhood is lined with huge drifts of garbage. This makes it extra hard because they have to see the destroyed, beloved items every time they go to the house.
The cars are still in the driveway, totaled. Eventually the insurance company will come get them.
Now my in-laws are just taking what they can out of the house--the remaining pictures, Buddhas from their altar, diplomas, calligraphy scroll Lao Gong had written, jewelry, etc--for fear of fire or looting while they stay at a nearby hotel. Soon, they'll move into a unit in the small apartment house they own, when their tenant moves out at the middle of the month. Very fortuitous. We're gathering up our leftover furniture for them to use in the interim so they don't have to move their own furniture. They probably won't be able to move back home for 6 months or more, something to do with the gas lines, as I understand it.
I think it's the toys and Christmas decorations that seem to hurt everyone the most. The toys are Mama's and Goo's, from their childhoods, which Ma and Gong gleefully shared with Sis and Bud every time we visited--old Lego soccer game, a moving penguin game, Barbies with a horse that Sis loved, a wooden labyrinth game that Bud adored, and all the toys that they hadn't gotten to see yet.
And Christmas. Almost 40 years of decorations and ornaments which they gathered to celebrate their adopted holiday. Every year we'd visit and Ma would proudly show the stockings, the dancing/singing critters, the ornaments and tell the different stories behind the Snoopy sets, the Angels, the little Eskimo Girl with her arctic friends. They're mostly Hallmark and some could be replaceable. But some won't be.
With Christmas just a month and a half away, it's especially hard to take.
Particularly when they probably won't even get to spend it at home.
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