Howdy from Texas!

Howdy from Texas City :)

The site I'm working at (along with my crew, Richie, Meagan, Elesia and Tim) is the home of an older couple, Mel and Billie, whose house was mostly destroyed by wind damage when Ike hit. Mel showed us pictures on his camera of a tree that fell through their front room, and the damage to their floors that occurred when the waters from the flood rose up to the bottom of the kitchen cupboards (mind you, their house was up on concrete blocks, and there's only one layer of boards to the floor to begin with). A lot of the house had been repaired already, the front room has been reconstructed with drywall and the whole outside of the house was given new siding, a new roof was put on, etc., all before we arrived on site. Our crew is doing a lot of finishing work, mudding, priming and painting walls, installing insulation (easily the worst job of my life), and so forth. At first they seemed like fussy little things to be doing when so many houses in the area are in need of a complete rebuilding, but once we started work, I was surprised to find how many hours can pass when you're sanding mud, over and over, and remudding, and resanding, and repeating, just to smooth out a few divets and scratches that others might throw by the wayside. But not you: it's your house, it becomes a part of your life and your dignity just as much as it belongs to the homeowner, and all you can think is, "I'm short on time, but it's not good enough. If it bothers me, it needs to be fixed." Maybe it's the perfectionist in me, but it's like Monty said at orientation: this isn't about production, it's about rebuilding a life for these people, it's about rebuilding their home.

I think the most important thing is giving Mel and Billie back their sense of peace and dignity, and even though it's not much, just a little blue house on blocks, it's their home of seventeen years. Mel was telling us about how, before, the storm, he'd visited his next door neighbor's "million dollar" trailer, and he told us he may not have paid as much for his house, but he slept just as warm as the next man. And when he talked about the storm, the only thing that made him emotional was remembering the death of his dog just this past weekend. His dog, who he loved like his own child, and carried around with him wherever he went, who gave back the love he gave her tenfold. But, he said, other than that, everything was good. This man just lost half his house, and the thing that gets him is losing his dog. That spoke volumes to us about humility, and what things we should place value on, rather than the material. It sounds cliche, but it's true. The first things we buy insurance on is our stuff, our cars and houses and other things that, in the end, God can take away in a heartbeat, and you can't take them with you when you go. But no amount of insurance can cover the damage that's done when you lose a loved one. To see him talk about his puppy like that just broke my heart into a thousand pieces. We can rebuild his house into a mansion, but it's not going to fill the void that losing his dog left in him. All we can do is rebuild his modest little home, and hope that he finds peace with it, that he and Billie can make it into a happy home filled with love and joy. Hopefully the love and joy we and other teams have put into it so far will give them a good start.

With love,
Maureen