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- Story Listed as: True Life For Adults
- Theme: Survival / Success
- Subject: Survival / Healing / Renewal
- Published: 06/19/2015
For many years I had a recurring dream. The dream never altered, nor did it have any reason to continue into my REM sleep. It was never a disturbing dream; no monsters or unspeakable acts of violence or terror, rather it seemed hopeful, if not exciting.
Each time this dream took me to the same place, a green field with a long wall. The wall was no more than two feet tall and built with stones. The structure had no beginning and no end.
I was drawn to the wall, perhaps even called to it as if it had a voice. When I reached it, I knelt down beside it and began digging at the base of the wall with my bare hands. The dirt was surprisingly soft and damp making it easy for me to dig. With each scoop of dirt, I uncovered unexpected treasures; coins, jewels and small art pieces. The more I dug, the more I would find.
I never knew what the dream meant, but I always felt in my heart, it had meaning. Was it something from another life? A premonition? Or just wishful thinking that I would soon come into a windfall.
The dream finally stopped, and for many years, I never gave it another thought…until the storm!
Hurricane Katrina hit the Mississippi coastline without mercy for those who called this beautiful hidden American treasure on the Gulf of Mexico home. I had sent my family away, to safe harbor, while I stayed behind and took another nurse’s spot at the hospital so she could take her small children to safety. I was part of the “on team” who would work at the hospital through the storm and afterwards until the “off team” could make it back into town.
No one dreamed there would be virtually no town to return to, and for many days after the storm, the “on team” could not leave because few could get through the devastation left by this monster freak of nature, to relieve us.
Hundreds of poor souls who were foolish enough to stay in their homes, walked, or somehow found a way to our hospital. Most faces were completely blank of expression, while others, half crazed with grief, cried and screamed. The injured came in by the hoards; each with a terrifying account of what is was like “out there,” and what they had gone through.
Most of the staff at the hospital questioned anybody and everybody about what was left, and where the patient lived in relationship to their own homes. The hospital staff became even more anxious as the days dragged by…not knowing was killing us.
Four days later, I was able to leave. Many main roads had been cleared enough for limited travel. My home was only five miles away and right off the beach. The closer I got to my home, the more anxious I got. All roads that turned south over the railroad tracks and towards the beach two to three blocks down, were manned by the National Guard. Huge rolls of barbed wire were strung adjacent to the railroad track like slinkies with thorns. All these precautions, I was told, were to prevent looters, the scum of the earth that prey on the misfortune of others.
I refused to believe my house was gone. I had designed and we had built our dream home just twelve years before; a two story house with balconies and porches to take advantage of the view of the gulf from the end of the cul-de-sac, and the shoreline only a thousand feet from our front door. We didn’t require flood insurance because in a hundred years that plot of land had never flooded. “But,” I told the insurance agent, “if I can see the water, the water sees me!” His puzzled look made me smile at the time, but he wrote us an additional flood policy.
I was the last one to leave my house before the mandatory evacuation. I took a quick picture of our home with the boarded downstairs windows and doors. It was a precaution my husband and I always performed when a hurricane was in our vicinity. Many of our belongings we had carried upstairs, just in case water came up the street and into the bottom floor of the house. The only things in our cars were a few clothes, some picture albums, my laptop computer, and a manuscript I was working on that told my mother’s life during WWII. Never did I believe those things would be the only possessions we would have left.
As I neared the street where I normally crossed over the tracks to get to my house, I was stopped by guardsmen. I showed them my driver’s license that clearly showed my address to be two blocks south of them. I could also see in the distance, a structure which I foolishly hoped was my house. I pleaded for them to let me by. There was no way I could drive through the mountains of debris, but I was willing to walk through it. “Too dangerous,” they said, but they took pity on me as I stood there in my dirty nursing scrubs, and they said I could walk to the edge of the first cross street perhaps a hundred feet from them.
That is all I needed, and I am not ashamed to admit, I took advantage of their kindness and nearly ran towards what I thought was my house. Minutes into my quest, a pickup truck with two firemen who were helping to find victims in the remains of their homes, stopped me. I was almost there and my desperation again must have touched their hearts. They drove me over piles of debis to the edge of my street.
I had no idea it was my street. Nothing was familiar; nothing was left. The structure I had seen was further east and completely gutted. Maybe the two men thought I would be satisfied by just seeing my street for myself, but they were sorely wrong. I took off towards the remains of my house, and not them or anyone else would stop me. Maybe in my mind, I hoped this was the wrong street, that the mounds of brick and mortar, the splintered furniture, the array of vehicles submerged in my neighbors swimming pools, or parked atop of trees like Christmas ornaments, were evidence of the wrong street. The two men followed me in silence. It was as if we were at a funeral and everyone was showing their respects for the dead.
I knew it was my house, or the remains of my house. The thirty foot palm tree we had planted at the edge of the driveway stood alone and draped in a variety of clothing or cloth of some kind. The foundation of my beautiful home, and part of the porch, lay open to the blistering sun. I turned to the two men and pointed, “We just installed that new floor a couple of months ago. It’s nice don’t you think?”
The men were speechless and waiting; waiting for me to break down, to start crying, or perhaps, just lose my mind completely. Instead, I calmly walked across my foundation, picking up a few broken dishes and stacking them in a corner of what was once my kitchen. Surprisingly, some pieces were intact, and I gathered them and a few pieces of silverware and a pot or two in my arms. I thought I would need them, though I had no idea where I would store them. The men followed suit and began to help with this useless task.
Almost a week later, my husband was able to drive back into town. He was hauling a trailer load of supplies that relatives in Atlanta had gathered for us. My daughter’s house several miles inland, had survived the storm, and we were able to stay with her and her family.
There were no utilities to speak of and the supply of water and food were a godsend. Behind my husband, several of my brothers had followed him to the coast to see if they could help us. The next day we all drove to our destroyed property. Our driver’s license was our ticket into the guarded areas.
My family was speechless. Never had they believed something like this could be possible. It was indeed similar to areas where bombs might have exploded. Everyone stared at me. Still no tears fell, and in fact, I never cried, not until weeks later when I was looking for a paperclip and suddenly realized I didn’t even own a paperclip anymore!
The salt water and sewage soaked ground was finally dry enough to walk around the lot that was littered with everything imaginable. The thirty plus foot wave, brought in by Hurricane Katrina, had destroyed our entire coastline and had strewn possessions from neighboring streets in our yard. Cars, boats, trailers, furniture and assorted personal belongings were piled high on storm surge mounds. The roof to our house sat intact two lots down.
As my family began to pull items from the muck, I found myself digging with my bare hands at the base of the chain wall of our house. To my surprise, I was finding pieces of jewelry that evidently had come from someone else’s home. I found coins which I felt probably came from the jar of change I kept in my kitchen cabinet, and I found small sculptures I had made from clay and stone.
Suddenly, the dream I had several years before, flooded my mind. This was it! An endless wall of destruction and these small treasures I was digging out of the mud were all in the dream. I could only attribute the green field to mean hope. I needed hope. But as I looked up at my family digging and hauling junk from the muck in the blistering heat, I knew. Everything I needed, I still had.
Everything I Needed(Sylvia Skrmetta)
For many years I had a recurring dream. The dream never altered, nor did it have any reason to continue into my REM sleep. It was never a disturbing dream; no monsters or unspeakable acts of violence or terror, rather it seemed hopeful, if not exciting.
Each time this dream took me to the same place, a green field with a long wall. The wall was no more than two feet tall and built with stones. The structure had no beginning and no end.
I was drawn to the wall, perhaps even called to it as if it had a voice. When I reached it, I knelt down beside it and began digging at the base of the wall with my bare hands. The dirt was surprisingly soft and damp making it easy for me to dig. With each scoop of dirt, I uncovered unexpected treasures; coins, jewels and small art pieces. The more I dug, the more I would find.
I never knew what the dream meant, but I always felt in my heart, it had meaning. Was it something from another life? A premonition? Or just wishful thinking that I would soon come into a windfall.
The dream finally stopped, and for many years, I never gave it another thought…until the storm!
Hurricane Katrina hit the Mississippi coastline without mercy for those who called this beautiful hidden American treasure on the Gulf of Mexico home. I had sent my family away, to safe harbor, while I stayed behind and took another nurse’s spot at the hospital so she could take her small children to safety. I was part of the “on team” who would work at the hospital through the storm and afterwards until the “off team” could make it back into town.
No one dreamed there would be virtually no town to return to, and for many days after the storm, the “on team” could not leave because few could get through the devastation left by this monster freak of nature, to relieve us.
Hundreds of poor souls who were foolish enough to stay in their homes, walked, or somehow found a way to our hospital. Most faces were completely blank of expression, while others, half crazed with grief, cried and screamed. The injured came in by the hoards; each with a terrifying account of what is was like “out there,” and what they had gone through.
Most of the staff at the hospital questioned anybody and everybody about what was left, and where the patient lived in relationship to their own homes. The hospital staff became even more anxious as the days dragged by…not knowing was killing us.
Four days later, I was able to leave. Many main roads had been cleared enough for limited travel. My home was only five miles away and right off the beach. The closer I got to my home, the more anxious I got. All roads that turned south over the railroad tracks and towards the beach two to three blocks down, were manned by the National Guard. Huge rolls of barbed wire were strung adjacent to the railroad track like slinkies with thorns. All these precautions, I was told, were to prevent looters, the scum of the earth that prey on the misfortune of others.
I refused to believe my house was gone. I had designed and we had built our dream home just twelve years before; a two story house with balconies and porches to take advantage of the view of the gulf from the end of the cul-de-sac, and the shoreline only a thousand feet from our front door. We didn’t require flood insurance because in a hundred years that plot of land had never flooded. “But,” I told the insurance agent, “if I can see the water, the water sees me!” His puzzled look made me smile at the time, but he wrote us an additional flood policy.
I was the last one to leave my house before the mandatory evacuation. I took a quick picture of our home with the boarded downstairs windows and doors. It was a precaution my husband and I always performed when a hurricane was in our vicinity. Many of our belongings we had carried upstairs, just in case water came up the street and into the bottom floor of the house. The only things in our cars were a few clothes, some picture albums, my laptop computer, and a manuscript I was working on that told my mother’s life during WWII. Never did I believe those things would be the only possessions we would have left.
As I neared the street where I normally crossed over the tracks to get to my house, I was stopped by guardsmen. I showed them my driver’s license that clearly showed my address to be two blocks south of them. I could also see in the distance, a structure which I foolishly hoped was my house. I pleaded for them to let me by. There was no way I could drive through the mountains of debris, but I was willing to walk through it. “Too dangerous,” they said, but they took pity on me as I stood there in my dirty nursing scrubs, and they said I could walk to the edge of the first cross street perhaps a hundred feet from them.
That is all I needed, and I am not ashamed to admit, I took advantage of their kindness and nearly ran towards what I thought was my house. Minutes into my quest, a pickup truck with two firemen who were helping to find victims in the remains of their homes, stopped me. I was almost there and my desperation again must have touched their hearts. They drove me over piles of debis to the edge of my street.
I had no idea it was my street. Nothing was familiar; nothing was left. The structure I had seen was further east and completely gutted. Maybe the two men thought I would be satisfied by just seeing my street for myself, but they were sorely wrong. I took off towards the remains of my house, and not them or anyone else would stop me. Maybe in my mind, I hoped this was the wrong street, that the mounds of brick and mortar, the splintered furniture, the array of vehicles submerged in my neighbors swimming pools, or parked atop of trees like Christmas ornaments, were evidence of the wrong street. The two men followed me in silence. It was as if we were at a funeral and everyone was showing their respects for the dead.
I knew it was my house, or the remains of my house. The thirty foot palm tree we had planted at the edge of the driveway stood alone and draped in a variety of clothing or cloth of some kind. The foundation of my beautiful home, and part of the porch, lay open to the blistering sun. I turned to the two men and pointed, “We just installed that new floor a couple of months ago. It’s nice don’t you think?”
The men were speechless and waiting; waiting for me to break down, to start crying, or perhaps, just lose my mind completely. Instead, I calmly walked across my foundation, picking up a few broken dishes and stacking them in a corner of what was once my kitchen. Surprisingly, some pieces were intact, and I gathered them and a few pieces of silverware and a pot or two in my arms. I thought I would need them, though I had no idea where I would store them. The men followed suit and began to help with this useless task.
Almost a week later, my husband was able to drive back into town. He was hauling a trailer load of supplies that relatives in Atlanta had gathered for us. My daughter’s house several miles inland, had survived the storm, and we were able to stay with her and her family.
There were no utilities to speak of and the supply of water and food were a godsend. Behind my husband, several of my brothers had followed him to the coast to see if they could help us. The next day we all drove to our destroyed property. Our driver’s license was our ticket into the guarded areas.
My family was speechless. Never had they believed something like this could be possible. It was indeed similar to areas where bombs might have exploded. Everyone stared at me. Still no tears fell, and in fact, I never cried, not until weeks later when I was looking for a paperclip and suddenly realized I didn’t even own a paperclip anymore!
The salt water and sewage soaked ground was finally dry enough to walk around the lot that was littered with everything imaginable. The thirty plus foot wave, brought in by Hurricane Katrina, had destroyed our entire coastline and had strewn possessions from neighboring streets in our yard. Cars, boats, trailers, furniture and assorted personal belongings were piled high on storm surge mounds. The roof to our house sat intact two lots down.
As my family began to pull items from the muck, I found myself digging with my bare hands at the base of the chain wall of our house. To my surprise, I was finding pieces of jewelry that evidently had come from someone else’s home. I found coins which I felt probably came from the jar of change I kept in my kitchen cabinet, and I found small sculptures I had made from clay and stone.
Suddenly, the dream I had several years before, flooded my mind. This was it! An endless wall of destruction and these small treasures I was digging out of the mud were all in the dream. I could only attribute the green field to mean hope. I needed hope. But as I looked up at my family digging and hauling junk from the muck in the blistering heat, I knew. Everything I needed, I still had.
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