God and I are in a power struggle. So far, God’s up three to zip.
It started in January when Herb came down with pneumonia after an unfortunate experience with a bad AirBnB rental in Costa Rica. When he failed to recover, we began the arduous journey of discovering what was causing his decline.
He was eventually diagnosed with mold toxicity and Lyme disease- most likely triggered by readying the family farm for sale and our Costa Rica debacle. His illness signaled an abrupt and unwelcome change in our world.
Next came the systematic dismantling of our home and forced exodus for mold remediation. Exiled to a nearby hotel, we carried our clothing in sacks, ate canned food, and frequented the laundromat. Two hobos, we longed for the comfort of home.
Even though the remodeling wasn’t done, the mold was gone and we jumped at the chance but, it was safe to return since our mold tests came back negative. We jumped at the chance, even though the house was still torn up, furniture stacked, with only a narrow hoarder’s path from the kitchen to the bathroom.
None of that mattered because we were home- we had a kitchen, we had a shower and most of all, we had a bedroom. This was our refuge where we fell into bed at the end of the day, watching tv, resting, reading, or just being together. Simple things take on magnified meaning when your life is a shit storm.
Three days after returning home, on a sunny Wednesday morning, a swift and fierce wind gust uprooted our neighbor’s 120-foot Oak tree, toppling it with the force of a train onto our house and through the roof of our bedroom. I kid you not. A fucking tree came straight through the roof of our bedroom.
I was in the back of the house when I heard the crash. At first, I assumed it was a blown transformer because there was no storm to warrant the thunder. I found my dog Jack staring blankly at me in the backyard. I looked around: blue skies, no damage, all good.
That was weird, I thought, as I turned to go back inside. When I glanced towards the front of the house, the front window was uncharacteristically dark, even as the sun still streamed in from the backyard.
Confused, I opened the front door to discover my home was buried beneath this giant tree. Curious and concerned neighbors gathered to respond to the noise. I didn’t register their shock until one pointed to the roof; only then did I see the carnage of the tree’s impact.
Somehow I missed the air thick with dust, the door blown off its hinges, the mangled metal air vent, and the gaping skylight created by the limb that tore through our roof. Our bedroom oasis was completely destroyed.
At first, I was in shock. Zombie-like, I called the insurance company, made arrangements for the tree to be removed, and reluctantly renewed our reservations at the hotel. It was surreal.
By Friday I’d come out of the ether and was in an extremely hateful mood. Angry and indignant, I looked for someone to knock the chip off my shoulder just so I’d have the excuse to clock them.
I cussed and swore at stupid drivers on the road. I glared at strangers in the grocery store. I flipped off a bus driver and honked at an old person. I was rude to a friend of mine on the phone. This was entirely too much to handle and God was an asshole. I told him to GFH which is not something you do when you are thinking straight.
Then I got a text from the friend who I’d been rude to. This is what it said:
” I attended a charity event last night (to support orphaned kids/families in Rwanda, as a result of the genocide that occurred there several years ago), and heard a story about a Rwandan woman who watched her husband, kids, and entire family murdered. She was raped, had her teeth macheted from her mouth and barely fought back to life and lived. An American dental surgeon came to her village, and when he “restored her smile” with new teeth, she told him she couldn’t wait to go to the village where that savage lived and smile at him, to show he could take everything that mattered to her, but he couldn’t take her smile.”
There’s nothing like a well-timed text to put your insolence into perspective.
I woke up on a Wednesday morning and a fucking tree fell on my house. It didn’t fall on me, my kids, or my partner. Random shit happens and there isn’t a damn thing I could do to prevent it. That lack of control and vulnerability is what scared me and made me angry, not the damn tree.
By this time in my life, I thought I’d have learned that control is mostly a myth, highly susceptible to abuse, and always overrated. So what do you do when God gives you a swift kick in the pants to remind you? You can tell him to GFH, or you can exhale, let it go, and, yes, even smile.
I’m pretty sure that’s what God was doing when he heard me tell him to GFH, anyway.
Great perspective piece. Any one of us could have initially handled it similarly. Glad you were able to upend the victim mentality and reclaim your peace of mind. <3
Love you, Jess. T