The next couple of days after rescue were consumed with buying basics such as a couple of outfits of clothing each, pet supplies, and toiletries. We also worked on getting a rental car, as well as filing all the necessary claims with insurance on our house, car, and FEMA applications.

We still had not seen the inside of our house. Late on Thursday night, I saw on our neighborhood Facebook page that a person was planning to be available to drive people by boat to their homes to collect a few items and survey damage. We had to show up to the loading point at 9AM Friday morning if we were interested.

Dave and I deliberated on whether to go back to the house. It wasn’t an easy decision for us. I wanted to see and know what we were facing. But I also didn’t know if I had the strength to do it. Part of me wanted to tell him to go alone. To face it alone because I couldn’t. But, we faced the storm together. We faced the rising water together. We faced the evacuation together. We needed to face this together too. I needed to show up. As I’m known for saying, suck it up, buttercup.

On Friday morning, we spent an hour in the car driving 3 miles to our neighborhood. As we approached, I began to feel nauseous. We parked our car and got out, trying to find the boat person who we had coordinated with. We located the boat person, plus a giant military truck. The military truck people thought that they could get us most of the way in to our house and told us to hop on. We climbed up into the back.

I struck up a conversation with the people in the truck, and learned that one of the women had just lost her husband to pancreatic cancer earlier this year. We cried together. We hugged. And then we talked about how much hope for humanity had been recovered through this awful tragedy. She told me that all eyes are on Texas. We hugged and cried some more, all while rolling in the back of a military truck through our decimated neighborhood and trying to capture pictures for neighbors as we went. I made a mental note to go visit her as soon as I could.

One of the sentiments I’ve heard repeatedly expressed is that “at least we are all going through the same thing.” While none of us who feel this way wanted this tragedy to happen, there is somehow a strength in knowing that we are all in this place together. We all need help and none of us can do it alone. We have all been “reduced” to this place where we must rely on our neighbors, our friends, complete strangers. And we can’t fail each other. We want to put our communities and our lives back together, so we simply have to show up for each other. I used to daydream about things like a ski vacation, retirement, or sometimes just a carefree day of sitting on the couch reading a book. Now I daydream with relish about tearing out my neighbor’s drywall. I digress.

We took the army truck to the end of our street and then got on a boat to go the rest of the way to our house. I got out of the boat, took a deep breath, and went inside. The first thing that hit me was the smell. It was unbelievable. Then the worms. There were worms all over the inside of the house. There had been about 8-10 inches of water at the high point. Currently it was at about an inch. The filth and mess and stench were horrible. Water had gotten everywhere in the house, up underneath our floors, some of which were now floating.
We walked into each room slowly, taking it all in. The happy memories from that home were playing on a reel in my head simultaneously while the scene before me unfolded. It was hard to take. I finally tasked myself with finding the items that I had been planning to get: my contacts, my work computer, whatever small toys could be salvaged, a few clothing items.

The good news is that we did a good job of elevating the furniture that was important to us. The desk that my grandfather made in his high-school woodshop in the 1920s, the piano, a table that we really like were all in good shape. We should be able to keep these items.

We put a few bags of things back in the boat and we left the neighborhood. We got back to our car and wiped our feet. We loaded the items and began driving back. We were suddenly hit with strong hunger. I find lately that I’m usually so mentally consumed that eating gets forgotten. We decided to stop at a sandwich place. I had no shoes to wear inside, as I had forgotten to bring a change and wasn’t putting on the galoshes again. I walked barefoot into the restaurant. It was the first meal I had had in a restaurant since before the storm. It felt odd to be deciding whether I wanted sourdough or rye or jalopeno bread and whether I wanted a small, medium, or large drink. What flavor of chips did I want? I didn’t know. I didn’t care.

Next, we decided to go to Enterprise to learn the status of the rental car that we had been waiting on for a couple of days. I walked into Enterprise sweaty, smelly, and barefoot. Although I had been getting quite a bit of runaround from Enterprise employees over the phone, they did a good job when we showed up in person. We now have a rental car. And, of course, I ended up hugging someone in Enterprise too.

Over the last few years, there has been quite a bit of dialogue about our phones and other electronics replacing our in-person social abilities. While we are all now completely glued to our phones throughout this experience, we are also all completely all-in in person. All over the place, random strangers are sharing their stories with each other. Hugging is everywhere. We all take the time to listen to each other. And then we share of ourselves too. We think about how we can help each other. And it feels really important. It feels more important than the next thing you need to do or the next place you need to be. It feels like humanity. It feels like love.