This time it was our turn to be "those poor people." You know who they are, the ones we see on the Today Show or CNN at 7am while we're trying to get to Starbucks so that we can face the morning. "Those poor people" stand in the rubble of what was just the day before a home, school, place of business. But then Mother Nature went into monster mode and decided to destroy in the worst way, without rhyme or reason, leaving us no possibility of explaining in the aftermath why the person standing in the middle of the pile that was once their home is getting help from their neighbor across the street who only lost a couple of shingles.
They picked through the rubble that once gave them sanctuary, rest, a sense of belonging, hoping to find just one thing intact that they could put in a box, even though many of them had no clue where they'd put the box or themselves at the end of the day. While some looked for a single sign of normalcy and comfort, others looked for someone, hoping and praying that the tornado had only taken their home and not their heart. Some prayers were answered, some not. For some, the only thing they heard was the sound of their own screaming when the news came, or God forbid, when they were the one to find her, him, them.
It was awful. It was heartbreaking. It was infuriating. But it was also something else. It was an invitation. It was a calling.
So we said, "Ok, let's see if we can get some food for this neighborhood by tonight." Facebook and Twitter were utilized. One connection led to 5 more, which led to 50 more which led to...let's just say alot. Then came the call to meet Principal Deb at Park View Elementary School. She told us she wanted to help in any way she could. Food was found, donations of supplies started coming in. Survivors of the tornadoes started showing up. Shell-shocked people began to be given back at least a tiny piece of their humanity. We didn't even know what to call it yet, but Park View Relief had been born. And that was day 1.
From there it just exploded, went from being a plan to feed some folks to becoming a full-scale relief effort. For most of us it was our first time doing this kind of work. Maybe that was our magic. We weren't experts, we hadn't done this before so we didn't have agendas or a template based on "before." We just kept stepping through the doors that opened, helping the people who kept coming to us. We knew what we could do and we tried our best to do it in a way that let those we served know that they were our neighbors, even if this was our first time to meet them.
Amazing stuff happened, both small-scale and large-scale. Members of the educational community came together as one to serve "our" families. Volunteers gave more hours than we could count unloading trucks, organizing the goods that were donated, cooking and delivering meals, handing out water, listening to stories of terror, loss, and survival. We did our best to cover the southern half of the county with as much love and hope as we could. A group of guys with chain saws came to be known as "The Chaingang" and the roar of their saws was heard throughout South Bradley as they cut people out of their homes and also gave them a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on. A volunteer took off her shoes and gave them to a woman who no longer had any. A couple from Atlanta showed up in their airplane and asked us what we needed, flew back to Atlanta to buy the goods, came back with them and then stayed to work with us. A little boy saw that we had apples and acted as if he'd found hidden treasure. Two little girls donated their bed so that another little girl could have one. A Eucharist of juice and hot dog buns was celebrated so that we could remember what had been put in our hands to give to others, so that we could remember what was in our hands may have been ordinary and unspectacular, but it was also holy and miraculous.
Springsteen's words from Long Walk Home rang in the air: "Everybody has a neighbor, everybody has a friend, everybody has a reason to begin again." We tried to be all three. It appears we were. In short, we heard a calling and said "yes." There was no other answer to give.
Our county is forever changed by April 27. So are those of us who became this conspiracy of hope known as Park View Relief. We will continue to say "yes."
And now for what's next...
