Experiences can be completely different, but sometimes there is understanding

Standing on the Ridge in Parkland looking down at the flooded Bow River.

 

It’s been just over a week since the flood.

 

Thursday, June 20th we went to bed knowing that things were bad, but when we started the day on Friday morning, we woke up to the reality of something that would be devastating, life changing, involve great loss, an event of vast proportions.  We even had a friend in our basement that had been evacuated from his home in the middle of the night

 

Three years ago on June 20, 2010, we went to bed knowing that things were bad, but when we started the day that next morning, we woke up to the reality of something that would be devastating, life changing, involve great loss, an event of vast proportions (to us).  It was the day of Jacqui’s 1^st surgery – when she had her foot amputated, the cancer taken away – the first time.

 

All this week while we’ve been in our house that’s “high and dry”, free from all the hardship that so many are going through – I’ve been feeling so removed and untouched  and a little detached.  It’s just been too much to take in – in our area, it was easy to forget it had happened and it wasn’t until I drove to look at the places that had been flooded, had seen the devastation, the loss, the piles of garbage piled by the roads after being dragged from flooded basements,   the muck and mire – that it made it real.   

 

I feel that in my dry world, though physically I don’t get it, maybe mentally I did just a little bit. 

 

I understand what it feels like to:

 

- wake up in the morning after and have those first few seconds of normal - until I remember
- have a feeling of hopelessness and despair
- have the days and weeks of recovery seem endless
- experience real loss
- realize that everything may not be okay for a very long time or ever
- be confused while filling out endless, mind boggling insurance forms - worried about how it's all going to work out
- have to make decisions when you can hardly remember your name  

- I know how it feels to wake up in the morning, to hope to see the sun and to find that even though the sun’s up, it still feels very, very dark

 

Experiences can be completely different, but sometimes there is understanding