You salty old girl. We had heard it was rough. Heard talk of Hazel or Matthew or one of the F’s – the “other” F’s now. That Flo, she sure beat you ragged and left piles of detrius in her path. And I wept for you as our little tribe – can you call just the two of us a tribe? – crossed the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge, aka the Big Bridge. Not to be confused with the Isabelle Holmes, the Little Bridge. Or the C. Heide Trask, the Beach Drawbridge. And on and on. There are a lot of bridges around here.
It seemed like at least a piece of every tree was brought down by the onslaught of wind and rain. And a lot of people brought low, too. Houses flooded, possessions ruined, exhaustion a new normal. But that Carolina spirit… that’s another thing.
“How’d you do?” Asked and answered over and over. At the bare-shelved grocery store. At the well-attended church service.
Fine. We did fine.
Lots of trees down but nothing on the house. We did fine.
Tree came through the roof but nobody was hurt. We did fine.
Lost pretty much everything but it’s just things. We have a place to stay. We did fine.
Preacher with nothing but a blue tarp between her roof and heaven handing out cleaning supplies and diapers… and tarps (of course)… at the church. We did fine.
Lost power. No drinking water. But there were flashlights and Cajun Navy boats. And Baptist Men from Texas. We did fine.
It could have been worse. It was worse. That baby. That poor baby. And it’s mama. Oh Lord, have mercy!
But another baby. Born in a medical tent in the Family Dollar parking lot. Oh Lord, what mercy!
So, we will be fine. We did fine. We are fine. And we keep telling it to one another. Until it’s true.
You are a salty girl… the air… the tears… the sweat of the brow. But oh, those bridges – they’re everywhere. And you, Sweet Carolina, are very, very fine.
(Cue James Taylor and Neil Diamond)
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