///I SEE 911///
Its about two weeks before Hurricane IKE makes its devastating landfall
I am just spending plenty of time at home not concerned with anything but my progress to recovery. I notice a strange reoccurring event. Every night I look at the clock at exactly 9:11pm. The first three times didn’t phase me but by the fourth night it began to feel unusual. I continued to see the clock at exactly 9:11 everyday up through September 10th.
9/11/08- I wake up that morning quite early to check out the news on the storm. We realize that we have no choice but to evacuate. My family makes the move to stay with my Moms family in Odessa and Kathryn and I will be in Pasadena with her family. We pack the needed items, mostly clothes and important documents, etc, and head out.
9/12/08- We all gather in front of the TV and watch IKE lurk in the gulf. The storm hits and the electricity is exterminated.
9/14/08- I can’t take the anxiety of not knowing whats happened to my home. Kathryn and I make are way to my family’s home. Once we arrive we immediately notice the water line on the door… water had made it in the house. I struggle to get up the damaged front steps and open the front door. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The house was filled with warm rancid smell of fish and rotting food, and sludgy mud blanketing the floor. My insides turned sour as I peered into the house. Unable to enter the slippery floors with my broken leg, Kathryn ventured in alone to take pictures of the damage. The floors were bubbled and warped, and the walls were soaked in salt water. The majority of our belongings were left in ruins.
No matter how hard I fought it, I couldn’t keep myself from crying. I began to weep and broke down. The home I spent the major part of my life in, was desecrated by infamous Ike. The warmth and love that filled that house had vacated, leaving me feeling empty and dark. It’s not the material that leaves a lump in my throat but rather the “place”. – The place I could always come to. The place that was my refuge. The place where the people that meant the most to me resided, whether they knew it or not…. Looking at the pictures and videos of that house when it was full of life cut me deep. I cried myself to sleep. It is now the 15th, and I awake with tears in my eyes.
“absent, gone, lacking, lost, misplaced, omitted, wanting”
…///Clay///
