Home  Articles Coping Grief and Hurricanes
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Grief and Hurricanes |
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Written by Grief and Hurricanes When hurricane Andrew swept onto South Florida 7 years ago, it destroyed ho
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Thursday, 05 October 2006 |
Grief and Hurricanes
When hurricane Andrew swept onto South Florida 7 years ago, it destroyed homes, wiped out neighborhoods, took some lives and some futures, wiped out businesses and left Dade county looking like a war zone. One of the things that hurt to look at was the trees...those that had not been uprooted, torn apart or blown away were completely defoliated. There were naked skeletons of trees upon our barren landscape...an area that is, despite its metropolitan design and large population, usually tropical green and lush with foliage now seemed to be nothing but broken concrete and shattered glass. Even the tree trunks wore that dead gray look that offered no color, nor comfort.
But a funny thing happened. Even as the trees began to "come back" and we realized it would literally take years for the damaged areas to return to the lush green we had grown accustomed to, we knew it would never again be the same in dade County. Even as the broken skeletons of tree trunks took on a fuzzy caterpillar look as foliage came out in places it didn't used to, and even as the sun broke through in places that had always been in shade before, something new took place. That winter, there was an abundance of wild flowers....beautiful bright flowers covered the ground in places that even grass would not grow before. Experts were amazed, as flowers that had not grown here for generations suddenly bloomed in abundance..and flowers that had always bloomed here suddenly were everywhere..everywhere! Apparently the stripped trees had allowed sunlight into places that it had not touched for so long....even touching on dormant seeds that had lain in the dirt for years. Salt water that had drenched the inland soil had damaged roots and leaves of existing plants, but fresh rains had rinsed it and left nutrients behind that the soil had been without. Nutrients these little flowers had needed to grow.
I was thinking about this, and remembering...and it struck me that grief is like that. As we look at the devastation left behind by our losses, we realize it will never be the same again. As we feel emptied out and stripped of the hopes and dreams we had held on to, we find ourselves laid bare to the elements..exposed in a way we have not been before. But just like the aftermath of a hurricane, as we struggle to pick up the pieces and resume some sort of life....a different life....we find flowers. Flowers we may never have seen if the horrible storm had not entered into our lives. Flowers like friends who we may never otherwise have known, tenderness for suffering we may never have been sensitive to, appreciation for life, love and the blessings we used to take for granted.
There is nothing in this world that could make me want to experience another hurricane. There is nothing that will ever make it alright to me to have lost a baby.... not once, not five times. But I do know that there are things I can be thankful for in the aftermath. And tho I love the shade, I also love the flowers that the sun brings up.
by Gwen Flowers
~reprinted from Always Loved - Never Forgotten
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