It was an ironic day in a way. I woke up with the intention to get so much accomplished today. I needed to revisit my plans, my road map. I needed to invest some time in searching for a job, a place, myself, and yet that is not what the universe had in store for my day. It was a day that started off pretty well. I awoke early, had a cup of coffee, smoked a cigarette, and planned to sing some karaoke on my phone before meditating and really getting moving. I sat in the guest room in my parents basement, singing my heart out. I heard in the background white noise, but thought it to be the heating unit. It is late October after all, so the days are getting chilly. A smell crept up in the short period of time that I sat in the room singing. My initial thought was that it smelled like the first room I lived in when I was in Afghanistan. We had private showers and toilets in our pods, a blessing of working with civilian contractors. Unfortunately, the septic tank had not been placed far enough away from the building, or properly vented. We would smell that septic scent daily, to the extent we went through a lot of deodorizers and eventually had to cover all the drains. So when I smelled that smell again today I chalked it up to a drain in the basement and the wind blowing the wrong way through the pipes. It wasn’t until I got up to refill my coffee that I realized there was water covering the floor in the basement. It ended up being about an inch deep in some places.
Gut reaction was to just start cleaning it up, my big concern was, what did it come from. I stepped next door to the church and interrupted my fathers meeting in order for him to come solve the leak problem. It was at this point that we found out the local sewer workers had somehow backed up the basement toilet. It was sewer water that was all over the floor. My dad, being also a member of TR and all around handy guy, and I jumped into action. We began removing water as quickly as possible. I also began moving things that had not yet been affected by water to higher points or out of the basement completely. Have you ever had your property flood? Or get havoc wrought on it? I have spent a couple of years now being there for the homeowners who suffer from property damage due to disaster. You would think that for an empathetic person such as myself, it would be similar. It’s not. I don’t think that I ever thought it would be the same kind of feeling, but I didn’t much realize how it would feel.
Initially I launched in to auto pilot, very operational. It wasn’t until my mom got home that it became more than just rote behavior. My mom was so upset, I almost failed to serve her emotional needs. That was confusing for me, because she was not a stranger. I thought she would be more like me and my dad were… Just get the job done and move on.
After the fact I realized that both my parents were drastically affected by the possibility of losing so much in their basement. The basement held storage for both of their lives and for all of us kids. My focus started to change, it adapted to figuring out how could I make this easier on my parents. This meant that I started determining how and what to save. I think it helped them, taking care of it as quickly as possible, directing the situation. At least I hope so… It likely was mostly a help for my own psyche.
In the basement was a chair I had stored there from when I lived in Colorado. I have been wanting to recover it for years, but even as it was, it is a perfect reading chair. It soaked up water about an inch up. The water was from the sewer, but didn’t have much visible muck. I want to save the chair. It feels very important for me to save this chair. I love this chair, it’s held me tight as I’ve read away the hours in many apartments. It was probably the most important thing to me in the whole basement.
My dad suggested I get rid of it, that the city would cover me buying a new chair in the clean up settlement. I really want to save this chair.
My dad had an old chest he’s kept most of his life. I never knew what was inside it, until I had to dump the contents out. I prayed the trunk stayed airtight, but it did not. Thankfully not much was damaged. I was a bit surprised to find this relatively good sized trunk was full of paper. Silly drawings from us kids, love notes from family, friends, and parishioners, news articles of good deeds done, and sentimental memorabilia filled this trunk. It made my dad much more human in that moment. If it was possible to love my dad more that day, well it happened.
It was awesome to see the community pitch in and the city of commerce city respond so quickly to our need. I think I learned a bit of humility today, even when leading the charge. It all became more real in the moment I suffered a small disaster. I don’t know what will come of this experience, but I hope it helps make me a more capable servant of those in need during disasters.
For now, I am grateful for my loving family, the fact that everyone is okay physically, and that the water is out of the basement.
Signing off, Commerce City, CO