the bitter and sweet of loss

I am 40-weeks-great-with-child, so of course I walked a long distance this evening...I walked for as long as my legs could go.

On this walk, as I came upon a park, I noticed a woman ahead of me slowly ascending a hill into the park. She was thin. She walked slowly. Her head was wrapped in a royal blue bandana. She had lost her hair. Cancer.

Fifteen minutes later, now up in a neighborhood above the park, a mother called out to me "Excuse me!" - she was looking for two small people, ages five and two. She had lost her children. Not frantic yet, but concerned, this woman hoped I had seen the littles that she was looking for.

Then, now on my way home as I cut through the park, I saw a sandal ahead of me in the middle of the sidewalk. It was small and black with an elastic that wraps around the heel so that the child who wears it can run run run without losing it...but this child had lost the sandal. I imagined a chubby little foot fitting inside of it as I passed it by, and I hoped that that small, squishy sandal-less foot felt okay.

I ache for these people and their losses, from the smallest sandal to the large loss of good health, to the seeming loss of loved ones (luckily the woman's two children were just around the corner and they weren't truly gone for forever :) ) 

Loss can hurt so very much. It has been on my mind today, and not just because of the glimpses that I had of it on my walk this evening. My beautiful home in Santa Clara is, in a way, lost. Amazing, unexpected flood waters poured into my parent's basement yesterday afternoon, along with many other homes on their street.

The thick, dark red, muddy water had no mercy. It broke through the windows and climbed over four feet up the walls. And then it sat there and it soaked its new surroundings. When it was finally okay for my parents to start pumping the water out, it took four pumps working for over four hours to drain the flooded floor.

Yes, it's just a house, it's just a "thing," but it's still our home. Seeing it so damaged and thinking of the lost treasures held within its cupboards and closets made me cry, and cry I did for a long, long while.

our backyard: an instagram via sister, Annie, from last night's newscast

our basement: iTouch pics via sister Kimbee

our basement living room: image via The Spectrum

The basement is being gutted down to the drywall. A lot of our home was lost.

And yet, a lot was saved. 

instagrams via Annie & our family friend, Brock

Like this classic shot of my sweetest dad.

(Okay so I am in love with that!)

More examples:

Most of our childhood picture albums were stored in cupboards just above the water's highest line - they were saved. My brother, Shandon's, mission journal was snatched up by my aunt - his stories and memories are saved. Letters that my parents wrote back and forth while my dad served a mission in South Africa weren't washed away. The telling of their love story, via those letters,  is saved.

And let's not discount that the damage done to our home was secluded to the basement. Two-thirds of our home is saved. That is an incredible blessing.

Things lost and saved - the situation is bittersweet, to say the least.

I think I've cried the "I-don't-feel-like-being-positive tears" all away now, and I'm feeling again so grateful that our family has experienced the loss of things rather than good health, for example. And we still have a house. We still have pictures and treasures and memories. Best of all, we still have each other. Our family is already closer. The Santa Clara community is even stronger.

This loss has already made us better.

Granted, when I see more pictures of our home and city that will come my way tomorrow, I will probably cry again, especially since I can't be there to help. But amidst those tears, I count on whipping out that happiest picture above of my father and hearing my mom's voice in my head singing, "We can do hard things!"...and again this confirmation of peace will come.

*More images of our home and our neighbors' homes here

**How to help: Santa Clara officials have established a charitable relief fund to assist the victims of this week's flooding. Anyone interested in donating can do so to the Santa Clara Flood Relief Fund 2012 at any State Bank of Southern Utah branch.