Emerging from the Flood

Old News and Short Attention Spans

by Mary Stebbins Taitt · 245 words

Sometimes, we hear about something terrible that happens to someone, and then they drop out of sight. We never know "the rest of the story."

I had a friend who fell out of a dorm room from a very high floor--he was drunk and should have been killed, but he lived.

No one ever heard anything more about him, but he resurfaced in my life years later--he'd been living with terrible effects of brain damage for many years. His story had long ago ceased to interest the press.

At our house (and in our whole neighborhood), we had a flood, and we are still digging out, months and months later. No one cares or wants to hear about it. They have their own problems.

When we got ready to go camping, we found out that the pump for the air mattress was ruined. We had to buy a new one. (This may seem minor, but it is one of hundred of little things that keep occurring after the big cleanup and the big expenses.)

Today, digging through a box, I found things that were still full of water inside an otherwise dry box.

I am still sorting through ruined slides and photographs trying to save the ones that can be rescued and eliminate the ones that can't. It's a slow job.

I fiddled with this one, made what was ruined into "art." Or, at least I'm calling it "art." (Maybe I should have signed it!)