Waiting

I am afraid.

At the moment we are waiting to be able to return to the ash that used to be our home. The area is still evacuated. I am afraid to go back, intensely afraid. Yet I know we have to do it, and I know it will hopefully help with the grieving process.

I am afraid to see so many neighbors and friends who have also lost their homes, our collective grief almost all-consuming.

I am most saddened by the shattering of our community. We will all be dispersed, and all the faces I’m used to seeing so regularly will not be part of my every-day existence. I am afraid.

I am afraid to see the house that once was, the house where both my daughters took their first steps, where we had our toddler’s art on the fridge, where my husband and I dreamed of living forever. I fear the accentuated process of mourning that is to come with seeing and smelling and touching rubble.

I fear this waiting. Just sitting here, doing everything and nothing. In a space I don’t know, in clothes I don’t know.