After The Storm: Reflecting on Lisa

Written By Daedra Isaacs-Haylock

We drove around a bit—just the downtown areas. Not around the Southside of town too much but my jaw hung agape. My stare was blank, but my eyes filled with sights of Lisa’s wrath or her divine strength. My phone camera was useless. What lay before me was a sight I wanted to ensure I recall but I didn’t need a picture for that. What I saw would stay in my mind’s eyes forever and while I want to say it was not as bad as I feared, it was bad enough. And I knew there was worst to witness; this was just the story the main streets told.

The smell of harbor mud filled the air, mud caked in corners of streets, and alleys. Boulevards were evidence clear of where sea merged with land clearly, at least a 3-foot rise to get over the seawall, zinc panels hung over power lines like laundry put to dry. Those not hanging were scattered, laying strewn across yards, fields, and streets. It was a destructive version of kids’ toys left idly dashed across floors.

My throat tightened, and my eyes welled up with tears replaced by visuals of our schools’ roofs ripped roughly off like a bandage of an old wound. They no longer gleamed against the sunlight instead, they now laid strewn across playgrounds where the shrill of children’s play once echoed; metal and lumber tossed about on once green fields where balls rolled and feet patterned; benches once filled with cackling youngsters gobbling lunchtime meals now huddled next to empty classroom walls. Rooms whose doors are now sealed for now we hope. We await word as to when that joyous place will be filled with laughter and learning once again.

A sense of relief that it was at least over. The pounding of rain stopped and the howling rumble of the wind ceased. That war of natural might against man’s meager attempt to keep the forces out yielded a horrifying sound but now that had ended.

The conjuring of fears and worry that what was homely comfort and pride could have lain to waste but that too had given way to desperate relief.

The ominous skies are now beautifully blue once more and evidence of God’s covenant so colorfully placed across the skies. They are clearly visible with a most effortless raise of my eyes to the expanse above.

It’s passed.

It’s all clear again but all is not right, well not with the earthly things we treasure, but life and limb were preserved. We are here to hope again, to build again to replace what is replaceable because the irreplaceable was spared yet for another time.

So the memories will linger. But we live and we learn. A new day is here.

No pictures. Though there were many to be had. None does justice except this one.