Hurricane Irma, Part VII – How to Give Thanks

It’s Friday night, and I’m sitting quietly at home, typing up my blog and eating a bag of Skittles that Brandon bought for me when we stopped for gas on our way to New Orleans. Two entire weeks I’ve let those Skittles sit, unopened. That’s so unlike me! Regardless of the Skittle thing, though, this Friday night is a lot different from the Friday night of two weeks ago. By this point, that Friday, we’d already drunk our first hurricanes in celebration of our escape from Irma, eaten our first amazing New Orleans meals, and met S, bartender and friend, at Hermes Bar. A lot has happened since then, and a lot of things that I thought were about to happen never did, which is obviously a relief. 

It’s been 12 days since the hurricane ultimately missed us. Yes, there’s been some damage around here and a lot of clean-up is still ahead. But, my gosh, have you seen the Keys? Have you seen some of the islands of the Caribbean? On the islands of Anguilla, Barbuda, St. Martin, the US Virgin Islands, and Turks and Caicos, up to 99 percent of the structures are at least partially damaged. Some of those islands look like they have been completely flattened. And some of them have just been hit again by Hurricane Maria, only two weeks later.  

I truly know how fortunate I am to have a house that is not only still standing, but has sustained an incredibly small amount of damage. In fact, I found out just today that the little water issue I had in the spare bedroom (remember, the one I was putting off calling someone about?) is actually no issue at all. A guy came out this afternoon, checked the carpet for dampness and, finding none, gave me some tips on how to get rid of the musty smell and went on his way without even billing me for his time. So I have some bushes that need to be trimmed, a couple of potted plants that didn’t survive the week inside, and a broken piece of plastic fence that can be replaced as soon as I have time to go to Home Depot (or as soon as Brandon gets home and has time). Big. Freaking. Deal. Yes, I know just how lucky we were to come out of this hurricane with nothing but a bit of a mess. 

I am truly, truly grateful. The problem is, I’m not sure how to express my gratitude. I am a Christian and a relatively religious person, and so it has been natural for me, over the past 12 days, to want to say thank you to God. But every time I do, I wonder if that’s appropriate. Obviously, I am thankful to God for all that I have, regardless of whether or not I’ve just narrowly missed losing everything to a crazy hurricane. But I wonder, in this situation, is any of it God’s doing? 

While I have been taught, throughout my life, that God is omnipotent, I don’t think he controlled this hurricane. I can’t believe that God spared certain people and places at the expense of others. He certainly didn’t choose me in particular or the people of southeast Florida in general to save from the worst of this hurricane’s devastation. I don’t deserve my good fortune any more than the people of the Keys deserve their bad ones, and I don’t believe that the results of this hurricane are some kind of reward or punishment from God. And so, I don’t really know how to thank him. Or if I even should. 

I remember, when I saw that the path of Irma was shifting to the west (so that the eye would go up the west coast of the state rather than the east coast), I felt a wave of relief. And then, almost immediately, I felt a wave of guilt. Of course, I didn’t want to see my house blown over and all of my belongings washed away, so I was happy and grateful and, yes, utterly relieved when it became clear that that wasn’t going to happen. But now it was going to happen to someone else. Someone who, only days prior, believed the storm would miss them, was now being faced with the worst of it. 

How can I allow myself to feel any happy emotion when my still-standing house is someone else’s collapsed one? When my spare room water NON-issue is someone else’s flooded bedroom? When my blown-over bushes are someone else’s tree fallen through their roof? I have truly been struggling with the fact that my relief is someone else’s pain, my gratitude, someone else’s distress. 

I know that my feelings of relief are natural and that my guilt is unnecessary. I certainly didn’t send Irma on her path of destruction. Absolutely nothing I did affected how Irma behaved. I believe in prayer and I believe that God answers prayers (in his time and in his way), but I certainly don’t believe that, because I, at one point, said, “Please God, don’t let Hurricane Irma come to us,” he decided to alter her path. No, it just doesn’t work like that! Surely, the people in the Keys and in the Caribbean Islands and on the west coast of Florida said the same prayers. Did I just pray harder or better or simply the way God wanted? Of course not, that’s nonsense! 

So what does prayer have to do with any of it? Why pray at all, when God is going to do his own thing anyway? And why pray about things, like natural disasters, that aren’t even God’s doing? 

These are the things I’ve been questioning for the past two weeks, and the fact that I’ve come up with very few answers is why I’m struggling so much now to express my thanks. Yes, my wish for Hurricane Irma not to obliterate my home and all of my worldly possessions was granted. But can I say that my prayer was answered, while so many other people’s weren’t? I don’t think so; I’m just not that special. I’ve even been purposely avoiding the word “blessed.” In its place, I’ve used fortunate and lucky over and over. But I refuse to say blessed. Because if I’m blessed to have a home that is still standing…are the people whose homes are not still standing cursed? I just can’t reconcile it. 

But I still want to pray. I know that, before the hurricane actually hit, whenever I said a prayer, it made me feel better. You know how people always say that it is useless to worry about things (like natural disasters) that are out of your control? Well, I, like many of you, do anyway (because how can you not?). But I know that every time I prayed, leading up to the hurricane, I was able to let go of some of the control I was trying to hang onto. It lifted a small part of the burden off of me every time I did it. I wasn’t praying because I really thought that my words would hit God’s ears and he’d alter his plans because of it. I didn’t do it because I thought God needed a helpful hint from little old me on what to do in the world. I did it simply because I needed to. 

I suppose that’s the thing with prayer. We really do it for ourselves. Because, like I said before, I think God is going to do what he’s going to do anyway. He already has things figured out. And so, while I do think that God listens to and, in his way, answers our prayers, I believe we really pray for our own sakes. And I suppose that can be just as true of prayers of thanks as it is of prayers of supplication. So perhaps, even though I don’t believe that God specifically “chose” me to make it safely through this storm with my home and all of my belongings intact, maybe I should thank him anyway. Not so much for him, but for me. 

I also know that I can be thankful for my good fortune (my blessings?) while grieving for those who are experiencing loss. I know that I am allowed to pray for more than one thing at a time! Last night, the people of Key West celebrated their “homecoming” in Mallory Square. It was a rare locals-only event in a place that is constantly filled with tourists. They were able to do this because Key West was largely spared by Hurricane Irma, but farther up the Keys, there is an incredible amount of destruction. I don’t look at all of those happy people celebrating their own good fortunes in Mallory Square and think that it negates any sense of loss that they feel for their brothers and sisters farther north. I’m sure Key Westers are thinking and praying constantly about the people of Marathon, Big Pine Key, and other places in the island chain that were hit so hard. But if they weren’t also celebrating the fact that they made it through ok, I would wonder why not!

I need to allow myself the same dichotomy of feelings. I can offer my prayers of supplication for those who are going through the worst time of their lives right now. I can pray for God to be near them, to watch over them, to help them keep it together while they face the long, arduous process of rebuilding their lives. I can feel devastated for them when I see their collapsed homes and I can empathize with the weariness they feel when they take in the work they have ahead. Meanwhile, I can also be happy that I am NOT going through that right now. Perhaps someday my time will come, but it is not now. Now, I am totally ok, and I am grateful for that. 

And so, from a heart that has been bursting with gratitude but hasn’t known just how to let it out, I say THANK YOU, GOD. For getting me to safety and for getting me to my husband. For getting both of us to New Orleans and for blessing us with the means to stay there until it was safe to come home. For allowing us to come home to a house that is still standing and that has sustained the most minor of damage. For sending us family, friends, and neighbors who were with us through it all. And for the knowledge that, no matter what this life brings, you will be with us through it all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Amen.