Sand

It’s so overwhelming!

Biloxi, Gulfport, Pass Christian, Bay St. Louis, Waveland, Diamondhead, South of the Tracks, North of the tracks, and on and on, and more and more.

It’s too much!

We gut one house or maybe two in a weekend. Maybe we clear trees and debris out of two yards. Door-to-door, we give out maybe 75 boxes of food or a few hundred blankets. And what about the slabs – what helps there?

We drive back to Huntsville and hardly notice the lack of debris when we get there. What’s accomplished? Those folks have to stay there.

Two buckets – one filled with fine grains of sand, the other empty. You with tender sensitivity, move one grain at a time. One, two, three, maybe four and you have to stop. The buckets look unchanged.

The sand grains know they have been moved. Each sand grain felt your touch as you gently surrounded it.

Gut a house but save a china plate – one grain moved.

Give a family a box and hear the story of their narrow escape – one grain moved.

Hand blankets to a woman whose breath you can see in the cold air - one grain moved.

Loan a scoop then have lunch together – one grain moved.

Cry with the man who must identify someone at the morgue – one grain moved.

Hug a sweaty team mate in a dirty orange shirt – one grain moved.

The sand grains know they have been moved.

The sand grains, too, thought it was so overwhelming. As they felt your gentle touch, they knew they had been moved.

It’s not so overwhelming.