Counting Our Blessings
While Helene made a mess, Milton made our house unlivable. Both hurricanes wreaked havoc on our little Gulf-side resort city of St. Pete Beach. Helene dumped the water, and Milton finished us off with big wind.
Since October 9, at our house, we’ve had no electricity, no water, and no sewer service, and because of the extensive damage, there is no real estimate when they will all be restored.
We are fortunate that a friend who lives out-of-state and owns a condo in St. Petersburg, offered us the use of his place to weather out the storm, in a no-flood, no-evacuation area. We’re still here, and will continue to stay until we can move back and live in our home. We are truly grateful to him.
The result of both storms: our car flooded and is totaled; most of our furniture was soaked with the salty/sewagey water from Helene and had to be thrown out including our bed; all our appliances including the central AC unit outside and the hot water heater are dead from the flood and have to be replaced; we both lost about half of our clothing; all the documents I’ve collected for my genealogy research over the past 43 years was destroyed; many of my photos since the time I was a child were ruined; I had to throw out a lot of books including some that I’ve had for decades in my collections of Irish folklore and works on King Arthur.
Really, I'm not complaining.
Because... After both hurricanes, we are together, safe, secure, and unharmed. (We stayed in the house for Helene, but evacuated for Milton.) Because of my partner’s knowledge and expertise, we saved the house and mitigated the damage, keeping it habitable for the future when the services return and we can move back in. He is truly an amazing genius. Nothing we lost cannot be replaced if we choose to do that. Fortunately, I had scanned all my documents and all my source records are digitalized. We both took all our important papers, our laptops, flash drives, and I have the printed copies of my own books and anthologies. Now I no longer have the dilemma of trying to convince somebody they really want to inherit my genealogy collection.
So, I truly believe we are blessed and protected by the Universe, the Goddess, and our spiritual power. We continue to give thanks to the ancient Tocobaga tribe of our region for blessing the land. Our city will rebuild. It’s still our paradise and I don’t want to live anywhere else.
Next week, we’ll resume our publishing journey, I promise. We’re still at the rest area this week.
Comments