I’m resharing this one. It has always been a favorite of mine. The inspiration behind this piece came to me in the form of Hurricane Katrina. I had a friend living in Pierre Part, Louisiana and was terribly worried about her and her family. They were okay, thank goodness, but so many weren’t … the devastation broke my heart. How were we to know there would be many more?
Since then, the weather battered us again with a record in 2017 starting with Harvey. It again, was personal. I had a son, daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, a granddaughter, five grandsons, brother, sister-in-law, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, cousins, all living within Harvey’s reaches. But it didn’t stop there. Next came Irma, Maria, Nate, Jose, then Camille off the top of my head and — I apologize if I have missed any.
So many left to pick of the pieces and go on. My heart felt stunned and damaged and weakened with each one. I wanted to help them all. And while I donated, I still felt helpless. I decided to try to ease their plight (and my heart) in the only way I knew how — through writing. I resurrected a flash fiction I’d wrote years before. I lengthened it, and brought life to it again, hopefully showing there is light and hope through—the last thing you would expect—laughter.
The Rambled Word 