Things we lost — and gained — in the flood

The pile by the side of the road in front of our house has become a quasi-tourist attraction. We’ve had mini-traffic jams with all the cars driving by to gawk at the disaster that has unfolded in the last two weeks. Waters have receded but are still high.

And all the stuff that was inside, the stuff that was treasured, the stuff that needed to be thrown away, the stuff that should have been kept forever, the stuff that has been moved around the country and some of it around the world — that stuff is in a giant heap by the road.

It’s just stuff.

It’s just stuff.

It’s just stuff.

A near mantra for many during these last two weeks. Indeed, when I see the piles forming in front of the homes of others, I see the stuff. I do my best to do the same when I look at my own pile.

But I can’t help noticing the remains of that little blue upholstered box that my Japanese student’s mother made me 14 years ago when I first began teaching English as a second language here in Louisiana. Every time I look at the pile, I see one of the legs of the buffet that sat beside my grandmother’s dining room table throughout her life and my childhood. I see the pieces of the beautiful chest my husband hand-painted for our firstborn’s first bedroom. The old piano my parents brought me from my hometown is in bits and pieces scattered all over the giant pile.

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I see the first leather chair we ever bought that time we realized we had enough money to buy new furniture. I see the old wooden Sapo game I thought was cool and convinced my husband to buy shortly after we were first married and spent our Saturday afternoons out antiquing. I see the Wii that the whole family used to play.

I see what used to be a bright yellow plaid bag I bought in Mexico one day when we lived in El Paso and I went across the border to get some pottery pieces. I see a pillow that went with a bed set we used in a guest bedroom. I see the faded cloth Advent calendar we’ve used every year since our oldest was a baby. I see still saturated notepads with notes fading. I see the home-style laminated “yearbook” of my oldest daughter’s preschool class, with pictures fading down the page.

To be honest, that pile is too sad for me to focus on for very long. By nature, I am a sentimental girl. I save things — too many things, according to my husband. When I start going through things to figure out what to toss or keep, I start with a vengeance. Within minutes though, I get bogged down in the memories attached to some tidbit or bric-a-brac.

So, the good news is that all that stuff I needed to go through… well, I don’t need to do that anymore. I won’t lie. There is some strange degree of melancholy liberation in knowing there’s a lot less stuff that goes with our family.

For now, I am grateful to friends and strangers who spared me from having to take a trip down Memory Lane each and every time I picked up another piece of waterlogged ephemera. I will forever be grateful for the massive generosity of spirit so many have shared. Even though we have less this week than we did before, I feel more — and I pray that the goodness each of you shared rubbed off just a little. I believe I will forever be a changed, better version of myself. Certainly, I’ll be less attached to things.

On the bright side, we have a ready-made reason for all those things that are sure to go missing from here on out. For the rest of our lives when anything goes missing, we’ll simply say, “Must have been lost in the flood.”

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