Hi everyone!My first week in college will go down in history. On my first day of classes, we had a solar eclipse and yes, I did take the time to go to the roof of my dorm and stare at it (with protective glasses). A few days later we receive some warnings regarding Hurricane Harvey and the damage it may cause. Classes get cancelled and everyone bunkers down. It rains for five days straight--day and night--without revealing even a hint of the sun. I suddenly had an influx of calls and texts asking if I was doing okay and if I was safe and/or if I had photographs of the flood. To be honest, up to that point I had the luxury of not even thinking about the flood; I was able to just regard it as heavy rain. But the more pictures and videos I saw of people's homes underwater or people trying to climb on top of their roofs to avoid drowning, the more my heart would hurt. It hurts so bad to know that no matter how much I wanted to help these flood victims, I couldn't
help them without putting myself in danger. My campus was flooded in a way that kept us in and kept everyone else out. So even if I did try to go help some people, I'd probably end up hurting myself in the process. So, I waited and waited and waited for the rain to stop. As soon as a ray of sun broke through the shades of my window, I ran outside. Just that a little bit of sun completely brightened my mood and made me realize that everything would eventually get back to normal; it would just take some time.
Even though it was dry enough to walk outside again, my heart was still heavy for those who'd lost something in the flood. I just felt like I really needed to do something to help. So, I did. Today I went with some other volunteers to help members of the community. We drove to a woman's house and on the way there, all you can see is the streets lined with mattresses, couches, bed frames, pillows, and ruined items of sentimental memorabilia.
We get to the woman's house and she asks a few of us to wrap up a few canvas photos she salvaged. Then, she asked me to go outside, take pictures of all her damaged clothes, and then throw them away. I went through every article of clothing and took pictures of every label. These clothes belonged to her, her husband, and a young boy (presumably her son). I sort through all of it and it is in a trash pile and right when I'm ready to throw everything away, I come across her wedding DVD. I stopped everything and just looked at the remains of it. It crumpled in my hand and it broke my heart.
I brought the lady the remains of her wedding tape and she just smiled and tucked it away. She just said thank you and asked me to put some stuff on the curb that said, "Free to Take". This woman really amazed me. She lost everything she had and still found a way to give to others. She made me remember the value in giving my time to help someone else. And that's what I'm going to urge my readers to do. Take some time to help someone else, even if it's just making them smile.
