The aftermath of Harvey presents so many ups and downs.  Each day has its own set of new challenges and problems to be solved.  We are learning to fly by the seat of our pants.

On Monday, we decided to leave our kids with a friend and go to the house to really get serious about the demolition work.    We pulled together a team of 7 dear friends who were kind enough to wade through water to get to our house and help us begin the hard work of tearing out drywall and baseboards and flooring.  We made our plans and arrived in the neighborhood in the morning.  We all put on our galoshes and prepared to wade in.

We began wading in to our house.  We started the dirty work of knocking out walls, ripping up floors, and tearing out paneling.  We had to sort through our things to decide what we could keep and what would be thrown out.  We began a massive pile of garbage on our lawn.  It will be many days before it can be picked up.  Likely, the city will be contracting with outside refuse companies from other states to help deal with the trash pickup.

The 7 of us kept working hard throughout the morning.  I was so thankful for these people.  Pretty soon, there was a knock on the door, and, I kid you not, a team of about 10 people, most younger than 12, streamed into our house.  They were strangers to us, but we had a mutual friend who had sent them our way.  These young people proceeded to do demo work in our house like nobody’s business.  They were a demo team from a local church and they were there to WORK.  They bagged up all our clothes, toys, ripped out most of our walls, and cleaned up after themselves.  I am so incredibly thankful for this team of strangers who helped us, as this amount of work would have taken us so many days to get done had we done it on our own.

Watching my house be stripped down to the studs was in some ways sad and yet also cathartic.  I feel like nothing represents a family so much as the house they live in.  Yet our house was flooded and then stripped to the studs.  Our house was ruined, torn apart.  Yet, my family is still standing strong, holding hands, holding each other up.  We will start from scratch and rebuild our sweet little house with help from a million friends and we will come out stronger for it.

As I began to do demo work, I began to feel physically good.  Strong.  I’ve spent the past 4 years worrying about how much I weigh or whether I’m in good shape or not.  Suddenly, I don’t care about any of that.  I’m ready to work.  It feels good.

We are still completing demo work on our house and then will begin with the spraying of mold killing chemicals.  After that, our house will require drying for a few days to weeks, depending on how fast it goes.

Because our neighborhood is under mandatory evacuation, there are a number of law enforcement officials who are keeping an eye on things.  In my opinion, this is good news, as it prevents looters from getting to our homes.  There are military helicopters flying over throughout the day.  There are all-terrain vehicles on patrol throughout the neighborhood.  Supposedly there are also FBI, National Guard, US Marshals, and State Police who are on watch.  There are police checkpoints throughout the neighborhood and you have to prove you are a resident to enter.  I welcome this, as mandatory evacuation can be an opportunity for looters to take over in an area.  So far, things have felt very safe for residents.

Many people have asked about my kids, so I wanted to provide an update there as well.  My kids have been having a blast visiting friends over the past few days.  We are lucky enough to be staying near several of their friends from day care, so we have been able to arrange many play dates for them while Dave and I go and work on the house.  As far as trauma from the storm, I think these effects will take some time.  They talk about the “big puddle” and they ask whether the “big puddle” has gone away.  Other than that, they don’t seem to care.  I find that the resilience of children is amazing.    Four years old is old enough to remember life pretty clearly, and I have no doubt they will remember this experience.  Dave and I hope to set a good example of being good and kind and strong while standing together through adversity.  I hope we live up to the challenge.