Barefoot & Rebuilding

I returned home, made a cup of coffee in my favorite mug, and stood barefoot on my porch with the screen door cracked open, watching the rain.

I wasn’t checking for smoke.
Wasn’t scanning for danger.
Wasn’t preparing for impact.

Quite honestly, I couldn’t imagine anything below rock bottom, so…

I just stood there a while in the quiet, listening to the rain, kind of hoping that the dead tree in my yard would finally fall.

Thinking:

“Come on, new kitchen…”

And then something happened that hadn’t in a while.

I felt the slightest smile creep onto my face.

I spun on my heels and looked at the destruction left behind.

What had looked catastrophic just a few hours earlier now looked more like an abstract museum exhibit.

The old and the new bumping into one another.

Pieces of life still peeking out from behind the ashes.

And somewhere between the thunder and the quiet, I realized I had spent years bracing for storms that had already passed.

I heard my mom almost in the room with me:

“In through your nose, out through your mouth, Peanut. come on baby girl, breathe.
In through your nose, out through your mouth…

Where are your hands?”

Since listening to my father’s advice had worked so well, I decided it was time I listened to hers too.

I did.

In through my nose…

1…
2…

3…
4…

5…

Big exhale.

Repeat.

I did not need a plan for the whole storm, did I?

I found myself looking for my daddy again, my soul desperately searching for his arms.

So desperate I could almost see myself reaching for him.

And in that moment, as I sat down in the same hallway I had sat down in many times before, I realized I was directly across from my eldest son’s bedroom door.

And I burst into tears.

“My baby…

Who is protecting my baby?

All these people consumed with hurting me, not realizing he is the reason.

We don’t mess with him.
We don’t mess with that one.

It had been a universal rule for years.

Why would they?”

I felt the self-pity rise like a weight.

Then:

5…
4…
3…

2…

1…

Where are your hands?

I just needed to know where my hands were.

They were scrubbing crayon off the wall.

Keep focusing on that.

We’ve got this.

I turned the radio all the way up and started cleaning.

Organizing.

Returning everything to its home.

I had no idea what I was doing.
No idea how I was going to afford any of it.
No idea what was coming next.

But for once, I believed my mom.

I couldn’t control any of it.

So I stayed where my hands were.

And I had faith that my children and I would be okay.

Southern Peanut