Neighbors helping neighbors... happens a lot in my community.
This post was inspired by Gary Woltol and a post he wrote earlier today.
Do you know what distressed property owners need?
In the fall of 1992 I was recently divorced with a very young daughter. I'd changed jobs in July of that year and was just starting my career in Real Estate. I'd moved back into my parents house with my baby girl into my old room and was saving money as best I could to move on with my life. On Sunday, November 22, 1992 I attended a class meeting in preparation for my high school 10 year reunion. I was at that meeting with friends when a storm rolled in around 4 p.m. I left the meeting early to head home because I had my baby girl with me and the weather was REALLY bad.
On the road home the black cloud just seemed to come all the way down the meet the road in front of me. It was very scary. Then I heard a noise I'd never heard before and it didn't sound like what I'd heard described as a train, to me it sounded like a rumble of thunder that just didn't stop. It began to hail on my windshield about the size of golf balls. I pulled over (and I was on a highway in the rural area where I live on a stretch of road without homes) and unbuckled my baby girl from her car seat and put her in the floorboard and leaned over her with my jacket over us and sang to her until the hail stopped pounding on my truck.
I got back on the road and headed for home. One mile before my house there was a tree that blocked the road. A neighbor I knew well (I had worked as a babysitter for his two older children) and been neighbors and best friends with his sister for several years in my early childhood. I pulled into his driveway and he was in his yard. A tree had gone through his dining room window. I told him when I got home I'd tell my dad, who I was sure would come and help him so rain would stop coming into his house. He allowed me to drive across his lawn to avoid the huge tree in the road.
As I rounded the next curve my horror grew larger. 7 homes in row were completely gone. Foundations and a basement were all that was left where these homes had been two hours before as I drove past that day. More trees and downed power lines were also in the road way. I was in a panic by this time about my parents. I had to pull over again and move a tree out the street. I know today I couldn't budge a tree that large, but let me tell you fear can move mountains. Then I met a car, a car not familiar to me, but the driver was my father. He was driving one of our neighbors to the hospital. I was happy to see him and hear that he and mom were alright and he was happy to see me and his only grandchild.
When I arrived home to my folks house the damage was pretty bad. A huge tree was on the storage building, the one with all my "stuff" in it waiting for me to move out on my own again. Another 5 trees on and in the house. The ski boat was crushed under trees. All in all over 100 fallen trees on the 2.5 acre property. My dad had been driving another neighbor's car because all three of their cars were blocked in by huge trees that had fallen. We'd had a tornado that afternoon. Three people in my communtiy lost their lives that day. Many others lost all their stuff.
But this story is about my community and what they did for me in the following days and weeks.
It was the Sunday before Thanksgiving. We had no power for over a week at my parent's house. Yet on Thanksgiving Day... we had delivered by people across the community a turkey, dressing, and all the trimmings. We stopped working on clearing the debris's and branches long enough to give thanks for our lives and the blessings of what we still had and the blessings of having a community that would not let Thanksgiving Day pass without my family having a traditional Thanksgiving meal.
Ladies from my community came and drove away with soggy bags filled with my daughter's toys and clothes and returned them washed and folded and packed into new dry boxes days later. The work of cleaning, burning tree tops, the repairs to the house were grueling and tiring. I've NEVER worked that hard. Before I knew it it was a couple of days before Christmas and my baby girl was about to have nothing. I'd not had time to shop. But I got a call from the Women's Jr. Service league. One of my friends had told them about the damage to my parent's house and that year my daughter got to have Christmas because of the compassion of others in my community.
It was a very humbling experience to rely on others for Thanksgiving and Christmas for my family. It certainly changed me. I was just 27 years old and until that time had always thought that someday I'd "escape" Eatonton, Georgia. But then I knew I was in the community where I wanted to raise my child. In the community where neighbors help neighbors and that small town rural Georgia was indeed my destiny.
People ask me sometimes about "community" when thinking of relocating here and I have no problem telling them it's the best place I can think of to live. Since that time I also try to do my part in giving back to not only my own community, but sometimes even to strangers in other towns who have disaster strike.
When I left a comment on Gary's post today... he answered it in saying it sounded like "compassion was a specialty" of mine and IF it is, the love and compassion my entire community showed me in my time of need is why. I'm simply paying forward what my Lake Sinclair neighbors showed me. I've always believed that all things happen with purpose and meaning. And the silver lining of my dark cloud from November 22, 1992 was the love I feel for the community I call home.
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