Relief & Guilt
Every night I’ve tried to post a little update. I didn’t get to it last night. I was answering the 200+ comments from my last post that evidently went viral. It seems that people all over are hungry for information, & y’all seem to like to hear me tell it because then you know they aren’t alone in your thoughts & observations.
Last night brought me another dose of guilt, as I remembered friends in Gatlinburg that I have neglected to check on & now it’s so late it’s embarrassing.
I returned some pillowcases to Belk before I went to the library’s Christmas party. I feel like I understand a little bit of why soldiers returning from war are sometimes disgusted when they get stateside. The excess is appalling. I figured my stupid expenditure for frilly pillowcases would better be used elsewhere right now. I felt guilty for going to the Christmas party. I felt shame for enjoying it. I’m telling you, being thisclose to tragedy is a humbling experience. I’ll get another dose of that today, as I go where the Good Lord & Lorie Yount send me. I’m starting at the fairgrounds. I had big plans for cleaning, decorating my tree, & finishing my book today. These were things I mistakenly believed I needed to do.
I was wrong.
They were things I WANTED to do.
There was no way I could stay at home, cleaning my house when people in this county don’t have a home to clean.
I couldn’t decorate my tree with joy when I carried a heavy heart thinking of the families who won’t have a family to celebrate with this holiday season.
So in a little bit I’ll head back towards the mountains. I’ll see more of the cavalry leaving, which makes me anxious. Can’t we keep them a little longer, just in case? They’re taking their bulldozers & their engines & their tanker trucks & it’s upsetting. I’m stingy. I want them all to stay. It’s hard to feel safe. All these heroes rushed in to protect us for awhile…now it’s like taking off a bandage to see what the wound looks like for yourself. My shell isn’t hard enough yet.
So the firemen drag out, knowing they did their best, & we go in…exactly the opposite from Monday night, where we were driven out, fire burning on both sides of us, ahead and behind, ashes falling & trees crashing into our paths.
The news quit streaming up to the minute coverage Wednesday, but we are staying abreast through firsthand accounts of people we know personally still in the thick of it.
They tell us we’ll begin to mend today. People can go check on their properties but they can’t stay. And they tell us to get ready, to brace & put on our smiling face, because the visitors are coming back. And I hope they do. In true Southern tradition, we’re gonna wanna talk about it.
So y’all come.
