Posting from Shital

A true Southern woman, whom I'll call "Miss D" since I shouldn't use her name here without her permission, is who we helped today. I’m sure you can picture her all the way up in Minnesota. She was extremely polite, spoke adoringly of her grandchildren, and was more grateful than we will ever know. She called all of us “baby” or “child” and cried after pictures when all of us lined up to give her hugs. It would be impossible for any of us to think back to our time here and forget Miss D. When we arrived this morning at Miss D’s house we found that it had barely been touched since the flood four months ago. All of her belongings were as she had left them, including pictures of various friends and family on the wall and food in the kitchen. Our first task was to take everything out to either a keep or put in the garbage pile. We were told Miss D was in the “throw everything away” phase and were told to use our judgment on things we thought she might want. After Miss D came out and greeted us all, we got started. We saved personal items such as pictures, trophies, and figurines and soon Miss D was directing us herself on things she wanted to keep or discard. We cleared seven rooms out today and started tearing out walls and flooring. Our crew leaders were quite surprised and paid Melissa a few compliments, which was very motivating to hear. It seems they like the Minnesota work ethic. We left Miss D’s house almost completely empty, a very different place from the chaos and disorder we started with this morning. The emptiness of the house feels like accomplishment to us, I hope that Miss D sees it as a new beginning. I was amazed that she had the strength to watch us take out her belongings and pile them on the street. To us they are only materials - only she knows all the stories, memories, and feelings attached to each and every one.