June 9, 2010
Not a Day of Rest
The power of water
Despite all our hard work in the garden, no one got much sleep Saturday night.
It rained. It poured. Thunder. Lightening. Enormous amounts of water. Wind. Tornado sirens. I am not sure any of us even fell asleep.
Blurry eyed, I descended to the kitchen early Sunday morning. The rain had stopped. I was happy to discover that we still had power as I pressed the on button on the coffee maker. I reviewed the damage in the front of the house as I retrieved our Sunday paper. Branches were strewn across the lawn, mulch had been washed away, but all in all, it was not too bad.
People started coming down as the smell of fresh coffee wafted to the second floor. Everyone was sore. My father’s back hurt, Nana’s knees were in bad shape, Joe’s arms were battered, Branka’s shoulders were crushed from carrying heavy bags, and I could hardly get up from the soft couch. Karen felt lightheaded and had a fever. Nicky and Sam had nasty colds. We all agreed that this was going to be a day of rest.
As we lingered over hot tea, coffee and toasted bagels, discussing the news and commenting on the oil spill, Kaya whined begging for a walk (or at least some coffee and bagels!) My father and I volunteered to take her and I slowly headed to the basement to get my warm pants from the laundry room. It had gotten quite a bit cooler overnight.
At the top of the stairs, I stopped. Our basement was flooded. Several inches of water covered our finished, carpeted and furnished basement. We had placed boxes of Joe and Branka’s books (many signed and rare copies) and belongings all over the place, and have not had the time to unpack them or to lift them up higher. Everything was humid, and wet.
The water had nowhere to go. The sump pump, overwhelmed by the amount of water pouring in, was simply inundated and the motor burnt out.
I tried not to take this personally, but feeling sorry for oneself comes instinctively to us all. I called up and was joined by the rest of my family. Disbelief. Anger.
And then we got to work.
Books were our biggest worry. While Branka and Jeff dealt with the sump pump, Joe and I unpacked and shelved the books, allowing them to start drying or at least be out of the water. We unpacked boxes, carried load after load upstairs and threw things away. Blankets, linens, clothes were all drenched. We started a load of laundry. A bag containing my mother’s old lace was seeping yellow water.
It was not a fun day. Jeff called the insurance company and catastrophe cleaning, but no one had time for us. Our whole area was in bad shape, some places (where the tornado had landed) much worse off than we. I wanted to cry.
We got through the day, I am not sure how. We cleaned, carried heavy buckets of water, and our ankles got numb from standing in cold rainwater for hours. Jeff bought a new pump at the hardware store, then worked on replacing the old one. The water finally started receding.
Sunday was not a day of rest. It was a day of backbreaking labor. But as I got ready for work on Monday morning, much more tired and sore than I had been the previous Friday, the sun was finally shining. Forecast for the rest of the week – rain!
Gracious Living - Day by Day 