Endearing Few

After my father died our home on Aldine Street was packed with people for about two weeks. They had come from varying places to offer their condolences, attend the wake and accompany us as we bid daddy farewell. We were grateful for the influx of people but it was the people who lingered after the initial two weeks that is forever etched in my mind.
They were the ones who understood that grief was timeless and that two weeks would never be enough time to grasp the magnitude or depth of our loss. Two weeks would not be enough to pull our emotions together, to sort through daddy’s closet and give his clothes away, to not hear the jingling of his keys – his melodious voice singing his favorite song: All my friends are assholes. Two weeks was not enough to mourn, to pick up the shattered pieces of ourselves and create a new path.

After Hurricane Michael trampled through Panama City one month ago – uprooting two and fifty hundred-year-old trees, slamming them onto to rooftops and crushing concrete – people came from varying places. For the first two weeks, people offered their condolences, donated toiletries, tarps, cleaning supplies and even assisted in lifting and removing debris. For two weeks, prayers and help rushed through Panama City with the same intensity and swiftness of the Category 5 hurricane. People left before the mourning began. Some residents have yet to return home, others are still living in school buildings, and some are homeless and living in tents.

Akin to the endearing few who remained with my family after my father died, there are an endearing few who remain with the people of Panama City. Among the endearing are those who supported and sponsored our church and youths to a mini-retreat in Santa Rosa Beach this past weekend. As we left behind piles of garbage – stacks of mattresses, wet furniture – parked like cars in driveways, trees cracked at the belly, mold lingering in the air – we ventured out of the devastation to see trees. Trees whose roots are still planted in the earth, its branches shooting out leaves that are still green – feeding the eyes and the mind. We were able to leave because of an endearing few: Pastor Brad and congregants from Good News United Methodist Church. Volunteers who hosted the youths from St. Andrew United Methodist for a night of pizza and movie – giving the parents a few free hours to head out to dinner at Shunk Gulley Oyster Bar in 30A.

It is the endearing few who are lingering behind that is helping the people of Panama City move over piles, around the shattered and broken pieces and who will eventually help us create a new path.

Kadine Christie

Deep Peace and JOY ‘ year round