Known and Not Forgotten
For a wink of time you had something in common. Do you wonder why you met for little more than a few moments? In the tumble of years and milestones, you may not even be certain of the name. Perhaps you were sharing little more than the road you were traveling at the same time, both unaware you were headed for lives forever altered.
I think her name was Cathy, and we were literally on the same road. Our military houses sat side by side. I’m not certain she had been my neighbor for more than a week. My husband Roy, our three children, and I had just returned from vacation, and I knew her only a few days.
In the comfortable, casual way that military families do, Cathy and I exchanged introductions in our shared yard. I offered to help her in any way as she moved in. Despite commiserating about the soggy August heat, we delighted in seeing our two sons, close in age, already playing together. Our ten-year-old Jim, an affable guy always happy to have someone other than his two older sisters monitoring his every move, found a new buddy to enjoy Matchbox cars and G.I. Joe’s. Brothers-in-arms!
One peek through Cathy’s open back door as the boys played near the carport, and I knew her next few weeks would be intense with a new job, her son’s new school year, and unpacking boxes “for fun” in her spare time. She was an active-duty Air Force nurse assigned to the base hospital. After some “move-in” time, she was to start work in a few days. The second time we called “Hello there,” from our driveways, she was excited to announce new furniture coming. The third time we stood between our houses was the last time we saw our new neighbor and her son. Twenty-eight years later, I know it was a Saturday afternoon.
“Have you heard?” I asked. “We may have to evacuate the base tomorrow for a hurricane.”
She looked as though I had told her she was fired from her new job. “What? It’s coming here?”
“They’re saying it’s aiming for the Bahamas and the base area could be next. By tomorrow night.”
For a moment she was quiet. Stunned. “But—I have furniture arriving Monday—and- I haven’t even checked-in at the hospital yet.” Her weekend plans didn’t include an evacuation.
Having surveyed the bikes, yard equipment and tools stored in our carport, my husband wandered across the lawn and joined in. “Might want to call the hospital commander and let him know where you are going to go.” We told her we planned to shelter with my parents, about twenty miles away in my childhood home.
Her voice quavering, our new neighbor looked from Roy to me. “Where should I go—and how far?”
“Just pack a bag for you and your son and head for a hotel north of here—Orlando, maybe. Probably best if you call now and make a reservation. You can always cancel if the path changes,” Roy suggested.
I reassured her as best I could that the one good thing about hurricanes was that we had time to flee. After growing up in Miami, I knew hurricanes, and without promising her, guessed that we would probably return in a few days to clean up yard debris.
We lamented Cathy’s sense of helplessness, as her face told us she was already riding an internal whirlwind. Everything she owned was inside her base house, or on a delivery truck, two days away. Here were her neighbors warning, “Get out of town, as soon as possible.” We suggested she let the boys play together for a while, so she could make some calls.
The next evening, at nearly midnight, August 23, 1992, Hurricane Andrew never turned away from the Florida peninsula. The Category 5 storm aimed for the twin smokestacks of Turkey Point Nuclear Power Generating plant in Homestead and changed the course of our lives. It left a narrow corridor of utter devastation in its wake, destroying most of the base. It was nothing like the hurricanes of my youth.
Cathy’s house next to ours.
Several days after, while we were still reeling in shock at the destruction around us, base security allowed us into our home to salvage what little we could. A ring of yellow tape, warning in bold letters: DANGER- DO NOT ENTER- was strung around Cathy’s house. A part of her roof appeared smashed in by a giant foot. Our neighbor may never have been permitted inside to search through her sodden moving boxes. My heart broke to think of her consoling her little boy, holding him close. Were there distant family members to comfort her?
I wish I could talk to Cathy again now. How are we to make sense of a catastrophe we cannot control or prevent? The weight of such loss is not easily tossed aside like a broken chair or shattered glassware. Did she find comfort in the words of Jeremiah the prophet, assuring us we are more than chaff in the wind?
“ For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jer. 29:11)
What kind of God shows us hope by allowing plagues, storms, and wildfires? Did she “cancel” God or draw closer to Him?
I would tell her that through many years and tears, I have realized that losing almost everything cleared a space inside me for God’s Spirit. By walking in faith alongside other believers, seeking God’s Will through prayer, and seeking assurance through His Word, I embrace Jesus’s teaching to His disciples:
“For where your treasure is, there will be your heart also.” Luke 12:34
The back entry to our house, August 25, 1992
Sometimes you meet a person you just can’t forget. And I believe God doesn’t forget us either. He knows our name and He has planned a place for His people. What was the fate of a mother and son who, like our family, found themselves thrust into homelessness, even if it was brief? The military family seeks to care for its own. I have faith that she found help and a new assignment to another military hospital. But is she confident that all our earthly homes are temporary?
I trust in the promise that we are all just passing through, as we meet other souls along the way. We aren’t home yet, but we are journeying there. Sometimes our road is broken, our feet are bruised.
“Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” John 14:1-4 ESV
