Nashville, TN

Hi everyone,

If you have been missing updated pictures and notes about our family adventures, you may have noticed I have taken some unannounced time off from blogging.  I was planning on putting together a post on May 1, but when I got on the computer, all I could do was read about the portable classroom floating down 1-24 in Nashville.  Then, my heart started to sink when I began to follow the news reports of the rising waters.  Imagine my utter heartbreak when I began to hear reports from my friends in Nashville that not only had the city become completely inundated with water, but also that the block I grew up on was one of the hardest hit areas in the city.

Nashville is my hometown.  I lived there for 20 years: completed nursery school to college there, made lifetime friends there, grew up with my family there, and have countless memories.  It's home to me.

We sold our house at 940 Beech Bend Drive in Bellevue when Mom moved to Hong Kong to be with Dad and Sharon moved to Knoxville to begin college.  Lillian and I had already moved out of the house for over two years; Lillian at UTK and I in seminary.  Sharon said that when she had to get rid of a lot of stuff and move out of the house, she said her good-byes to the house.  When my family was moving out, I was in Philadelphia with a new semester starting so I did not get to say good-bye.  So to this day, when I have dreams about home, it is always that home I see in my dreams.  I could be interacting with people from all across my life, but we would always be in that house.

The backyard to my old house backed up to the Little Harpeth River, which breeched its banks on  Sunday, May 2.  A friend of mine posted a post-flood picture of my old house on my Facebook page:  there is a discernible water line IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOF.  Another friend of mine shared there is an unconfirmed report that the Harpeth River crested 38 feet above level in some places.  What used to be a glorified creek now looks like the Mississippi.

I spent the majority of last week in mourning.  I mourned the devastation to my beloved hometown, the great loss experienced by those who were living in my beautiful city, and I mourned that I could not be with my many friends and their families who were in mourning as well.

There is certainly something to a sense of "place", to those markers in your life where you can take your kids and say "This is where Mommy grew up/went to school/played with her friends, etc."  We do tend to assume those places will remain forever and are heartbroken when we are proved wrong.  Why do we try to believe that the things of this earth will last forever when Jesus repeatedly warned us against storing up our treasures on earth?

However, I am also thankful.  Thankful that in the midst of the surging waters, Nashville did not experience a large number of lost lives, that criminal activity was extremely low and the amount of helping hands was extremely high.  I have become thankful that the national media has finally turned its eye to Nashville's disaster, giving it an opportunity to receive the help it surely deserves.  Incidentally, when Anderson Cooper went to Nashville to do a live show on May 6, he was broadcasting from my old neighborhood on Beech Bend Drive.

So please forgive me for not posting some lively pictures of my children with my editorial comments.  I have been truly feeling my place in the Nashville Diaspora this past week.  The blogging will pick back up very very soon.  Some of my planned posts:  Evie's recent fascination with flamingos, Isaac's growing mobility, and how I opened up a mini-daycare one day.

Blessings, Doris