In the Wake of Helene
ever grateful for your outpouring
Dear Friends,
My family, loved ones, and I are safe in the aftermath of Helene. I am at home in Asheville with a close friend with two of my sons nearby. Sweet Petunia weathered the torrent.
Thank you for your outpouring of love, concern, care, and prayers. Temporary cell towers have gone up in numerous locations over the past few days. While service remains spotty and is slow, I can now see your incoming messages and emails. I am inadequate to express the magnitude of my gratitude for your outpouring. Thank you.
In this still crisis stage of recovery, existence is what is right in front of us: it is biological, it is a neighbor in need, it is going to where the next need presents. Search and rescue efforts are ongoing, as is the recovery of bodies.
Being on the receiving end of the help that continues to arrive from near and very far is almost more than the heart can bear. In every pocket of this suddenly changed place that last week bustled with city hum, on every tree-shredded mountain ridge, and in the water-swallowed hollows where not trucks, not helicopters or ATVs, but only mules and horses can make it to pull people out or carry water and food in, the goodness of humanity spills over. We are good to each other when together we come to the bare nakedness of being alive or dead and all else that seemed to matter washes away.
Meaning-making the enormity of this devastation will come, I tell myself. . . . For now, with basic services out at this time (power, water, and limited cellular connectivity), we will postpone this month’s Zoom Gathering in Silence, scheduled for Sunday, October 6.
Please share in a few moments of silence from 12–12:15pm ET on Sunday.
Do let me know if you do. reneeeliphd [AT] gmail [DOT] com
Your heartfelt presence and prayers are nourishment. Please continue.
Some of you have asked for additional ways to help. Blue Ridge Public Radio maintains an updated list of ways to donate and help.
I will close for now, brief of letter today, words inadequate and slow to come. As much, I write with humbleness of heart.
Ever in gratitude, and with love,
Renée
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Dearest Renée, reaching tentacles of love eastwards, wishing they could lift people from their homes, hand out food, shelter with blankets. The enormity of what you and your loved ones just experienced is hard to comprehend. I’m so glad you are safe, though I imagine being in the midst is a trauma all its own. May your heart feel held. You are so loved and appreciated.
We can only imagine what it is to live through devastation of this magnitude if we have experienced it ourselves and I have never lived through anything of this degree. But I do know that humans are good and they will come through for each other. Thank you for this update Darling Renee, and for the link to where we can be of assistance the most. I am sending love and prayers🩷