Hurricane Sandy

I feel like I have been living in a post-apocalyptic world since being hit by Hurricane Sandy. We had no power, no heat, no hot water. We moved as much stuff from the fridge into coolers with ice to the garage & I cooked on the grill plate attached to my BBQ in the garage! That was pretty interesting - only being able to cook one thing at a time. I usually have a couple pots going at once. Then to do it with a flashlight because it gets dark pretty early and we can’t exactly have dinner at 4:30! I joked with the girl that I felt like we were camping. That’s a pretend game she often wants to play and she has asked to go camping many times. We have never gone and I never intended on going because I don’t find any appeal to sleeping on dirt, being crawled over by bugs. This experience has only strengthened my “NO WAY, JOSE” attitude toward “roughing it”.

And keeping occupied a kid with CP who can’t do anything for herself is unbelievably difficult. Think about it; you can pick up a book and read if you want, or play solitaire or even a board game with someone else, take a nap…but with the girl, I have to not only be HER body but my body as well. And a 14 year old (with delays) is not easily distracted, especially when she is trying to tell me what it is she wants and 1) I can’t figure it out because her communication device is dead and the game of 20 questions isn’t getting us anywhere or 2) she wants to do something on the computer or T.V. that requires power/internet and she doesn’t understand the concept of no power = no T.V./internet.

I knew I would be excited when the lights came back on but she was ecstatic! It was funny because she had already gone to bed about 15 minutes prior to the power coming back on. But as soon as she heard the “beep beep” from some of the electronics catching internet (that sounds like a new virus) and the voices from my T.V. set, she started to laugh and holler. She INSISTED I turn on her television so she can catch up on some of her shows! She was truly a happy kid.

P.S. – There are so many people still suffering through the after-effects of Sandy. The people living on Fire Island and other shore communities have lost so much. I haven’t seen the pictures but on the radio, the reporters were saying that each individual house looked like an island – all you could see were rooftops surrounded by water. This post reflects my joy at returning to normal without any major catastrophes save for some lost condiments that we couldn’t fit in the coolers but I don’t want to diminish the trauma being experienced by thousands. I do pray that those affected will find comfort and can return to their normal as quickly as possible, in Jesus name.