Survivor's Guilt

An update from the southeast in the wake of Hurricane Helene

It felt wrong skipping this week’s check-in with you all, but I’m struggling with some health issues and operating at a verrrrrry slow pace right now. Compounded with the crisis mode I operated in last week as Hurricane Helene blew through my region, I’m giving myself permission to take a step back and only worry about the basics right now.

Plus, I don’t have wifi yet. Well, I kind of do — it came back online while I was on the phone canceling my internet service because the technician told me it could be months before the system was operational. I ordered a Starlink and it should be here by the end of the month. Christopher says he’ll install it, but for now, I’m operating on borrowed wifi.

A hurricane, a retired physician, and an aircraft mechanic walk into a barn — and reconstruct the failing joists and rafters.

Survivor’s Guilt

But I want to take a second to talk about survivor’s guilt because it’s a real thing and more often than not these days, I’m reminding visitors to our farm to allow themselves the chance to really process the destruction of the storm in their communities beyond the epicenter of the Appalachians.

The upstate of South Carolina was torn up. Already vulnerable populations in our area were slammed by food, water, and vital resource scarcity. As the world’s eye turned toward sending aid to devastated regions of the mountains, the foothills were scrambling to find gas and groceries. As school closures stretched into the week, teachers sent SOS messages to local food resources asking them to please send aid to children they knew were hungry on the best of days.

While humble and honorable and charitable, the compassionate human tendency to minimize personal losses, to skip the grieving because somebody else has it worse, is a type of spiritual bypassing. It’s as if counting our blessings earns us points in some nebulous heavenly database, but a stiff upper lip doesn’t allow your neighbor the space to grieve their own losses. We’re quick to remind someone that it could be worse, but our platitudes give the impression that we’re not available for other people to voice their anxieties.

Bottled anxiety is a nervous system time bomb.

I’m linking to my list of regional resources for charitable contributions in the wake of Hurricane Helene below, but remember that the easiest, most accessible, most needed act of giving you can do right now is listening to someone else’s story. And when you’re listening, try to listen to listen instead of listening to force an action that makes you feel less uncomfortable with your powerlessness to fix someone’s problems.

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I’m living by this

Laura Lentz

quote these days:

I learned from the Rabbi that listening to a story is an act of divine grace. The story itself becomes the prayer, and the reckoning.

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Lakin Khamis’ Story

Lakin is an instructor at my farm and a stellar human being. She was traveling when Helene struck the mountains and arrived home to a changed landscape:

When Hurricane Helene hit upstate South Carolina, I was 600 miles away in my hometown of Indianapolis. I left Thursday morning before knowing how intense the storm was going to be and if we were even going to be affected. On my drive through western North Carolina and Tennessee, there were signs on Highway 40 (that no longer exists) warning of heavy rainfall, but I don't think anyone had any clue how intense it would actually be. I woke up Friday morning to a notification that the power was out at my house, but had no idea how severe the storm actually was until I checked messages from my friends. Of course I was worried about my home and if any trees had fallen on it, but I was more concerned about the status of my friend's homes and the equine farms that I have come to call a second home. 

With service in South Carolina being spotty due to the widespread power and wifi outages, I sat around at a funeral, and then a wedding, waiting to hear the status of the farms and our homes. While I was waiting, all I could focus on is how much I wished I could be back in the upstate helping in whatever way possible. As the days went on while I was out of town, the guilt started to set in.  I felt guilty that I had power while my friends were living in total darkness.  I felt guilty that I had running water and a warm shower, while the farms struggled to fill water buckets and troughs for the horses. I felt guilty that I was visiting with friends and family while my friends were cutting down trees that fell on their fences, sheds and homes.  I felt guilty that I was not there to lend a helping hand when people needed it the most. 

So when I arrived back in town on 10/6, I headed straight up to Asheville the next day to volunteer with BeLoved. It was eye opening to see the widespread need of the community up there and the influx of donations from all over the south and midwest. It was moving to see how many people are still out helping, but as time goes on, we know the volunteer numbers are going to dwindle as life get more and more back to normal. While I felt guilty for not being in town for the initial hit and clean up, I know that my time and efforts are still needed for the foreseeable future in my community and the surrounding areas. 

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To Helene and Back

I’ve started a Facebook group called To Helene and Back as a place for equine professionals in the region to process their emotions and thoughts. If you’re actively involved in the daily care of livestock and want to join us in this informal, safe space, I’d love to have you because the coming months/years of processing will be unprecedented for all of us. This was a 1000-year hurricane in the mountains. Our great-great-great + grandparents didn’t have an antidote for this. There is a particular kind of fear that comes with animal husbandry. We wake up with it and go to sleep with it. Let’s carry our fears together.

I don’t know much right now, but I know I am great at lists so:

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Vetted Organizations That Need Your Contributions

• If you want to DO SOMETHING to help people in the worst of the Hurricane Helene destruction, here is an ever-growing list of trusted initiatives that will put your dollars to work immediately. But please keep scrolling to the bottom of the page where I list vetted organizations that work tirelessly to assist food insecurity in my town. As I said above, the most vulnerable in the Upstate of SC were hit hard by the storm, its aftermath, and all available resources going to drop off points in NC. Food pantries are slim on supplies. You won’t go wrong donating to any of these boots-on-the-ground armies of civilian light workers across the region.

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The Daily Juno

• If you need balm for your soul — and I mean true balm, without platitudes or BS, you need to follow Tamar Reno on Facebook and click on her Daily Juno posts. Photos of the fluffiest, kindest, soulful guardian dog are the main draw, but Tamar’s words tap into the ancient heart of the Appalachians. Follow her and feel your soul nod in agreement as we all wander through the twisted roads of healing.

This is Juno. I am obsessed with him. I’m also obsessed with Tamar as a human, a kindred spirit, and a writer.

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The Storm Isn’t Over

• In the days after the storm, I wrote a piece about my neighborhood and what little we knew of the devastation in the surrounding region that you can find here. I’m drawing attention to it because I had to eat crow when a local news station showed up to cover one of our farm initiatives that we held Friday evening in the hopes of bringing some joy and normalcy into people’s lives, but this was after I’d spent the week ranting about how the destruction of Hurricane Helene wasn’t being covered by many news sources. In the days/weeks/months to come that coverage and the support of the world is even more needed. Rescue has moved into recovery and that work is going to be very slow going. Entire towns in the mountains were washed away. So many roads are still inaccessible. These beloved hills need you to keep them in your thoughts, actions, and prayers for a very long time. The entire Blue Ridge Parkway is closed indefinitely, and it doesn’t feel like autumn if the changing leaves aren’t witnessed by visitors. Think about those artisan shops and those bucolic towns you loved along your drives and consider paying things forward by purchasing gift certificates from small businesses affected by the storm for the holidays this year. I’m going to start amassing a list of individuals and businesses that need you and I will post it in the coming weeks.
  

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My Love Story

• There was a time, not too long ago when all my attention was focused on writing my love story. I’m busy living that love story in a true test of partnership right now, but I will soon be back with Chapter 8. Many of the chapters, like my list of charitable resources, were paywalled without my knowledge. They are all now free and you can catch up here: Ten Times I Said No To Love || Chapter One || Chapter Two || Chapter Three || Chapter Four || Chapter Five || Chapter Six || Chapter Seven ||

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While we’re on the subject of love, I need to make an extra special shout-out to my HUSBAND (my favorite pastime right now is yelling, “Has anyone seen my husband?”) Christopher Carter. He not only took my last name, but he took a week and more off work to see the farm through the hurricane, helping us pick up all the pieces and get water to the horses when the well and utilities were down. He learned to use a chainsaw in fifteen minutes and single-handedly sawed and moved trees that would otherwise take a team of arborists. He fired up an old generator that hadn’t been used in years while the storm was just a rumor. We wouldn’t have had flowing water at the farm without it.

Spending our first week of marriage in the thick of a natural disaster and now our second week with me sick and barely functioning would be daunting for some men, but not Christopher. He’s back at work now while still worrying about the six thousand houseplants that need to be brought inside because of cooler temps (I have no idea how they withstood the wind gusts while the 100 + ft. white oaks did not), waging battle with the cabbage worms, making sure the hay room is stocked, placing my laptop in safe spots when I fall asleep, and filling in every gap that becomes visible when he never once signed up to be a farmer.

It is a whole new world being married to someone I like — someone who is competent and dependable.

I know I said this post was going to be short. Comparatively, it still is?

I hope that you and yours are finding your way this week. I’ll be holding you close from my little corner of the world.

Tell me your stories.

Love,
Kim

What tree?