You Guys Have It Figured Out

Saturday morning, September 17, 2005

The propped-up, handmade sign plainly said, “Closed.” He drove slowly past that and stopped. He looked a bit nervous, but he asked anyway, “Are you closed?”

I could not sleep. Since way early, my Bible reading had been done. I had prayed to be used as a light for Him. Strong, “submarine” coffee had been made and drank. Now I was out in the parking lot for the morning art show in the sky. “Yes, we are closed. What do you need?”

“Diapers.”

“We’ve got pallets full of diapers. What size?”

Cases of diapers and gallons of water went into the cluttered truck bed.

“How are you doing?” The question turned on his switch.

He needed to tell his story. The diapers were for his granddaughter. He lived south of the tracks near the beach where the storm surge hit hardest. His two rental houses were destroyed. The two-story house he lived in was flooded four feet up the walls on the second floor. Debris - the shredded, torn remains of other houses, broken power poles and wires, smashed tractor-trailers and cars, and a soggy, stuffed Goofy doll - was piled up to the second story porch. To carry the diapers and water in was an interesting proposition.

He is a professor, a Science Department Head, at a university. Not very religious. “Want to go across the tracks and see?”

“Yes, let me get my camera.”

An hour later, I was about past “stunned” and working on “recovery.” You have seen the pictures, but I had smelled the smell, touched the debris, heard the man, felt the emotion. Tears say a lot even between two grown men of science.

Back at the Long Beach church parking lot, we sat in his truck and finished our talk.

“Thanks for the ride and the talk. You have taught me a lot that I will never forget.”

“Ed, I have lost everything, but you know what? I feel free.” A long silence. Gesturing toward the church building, he softly whispered, “You guys have it figured out.”

Ed Ditto