her World Is Back

Aransas Pass, Texas. You’ve probably never heard of it. It’s a small town in the Coastal Bend area of Texas, east of Corpus Christi. On August 25, 2017, this small town would experience wind gusts of over 130 mph, while Hurricane Harvey ravaged south Texas. Homes and business suffered severe structural damage, while trees were downed and infrastructure destroyed.

Linda O’Neal’s home was no exception. A massive tree in her backyard fell onto the back of her home, destroying her bedroom and laundry room, forcing her to move everything into her living room.

All Hands and Hearts came in to rebuild Linda’s bedroom and laundry room. Over the course of several weeks, groups of volunteers from all over the world would meet Linda and help her find joy and normalcy in her life.

“I just felt like all of them were my kids, and of course the older people that were here were just wonderful people. I just can’t explain how they… they meant so much to me, it was unreal.”

We walked into the back bedroom and laundry room, her telling me about the things she had done, and all the things she still needed to do to the room. I had seen the finished product, but it had just been an empty shell.

Now it was a lived in bedroom. Completely normal, just like it should be. Standing there, taking it all in, Linda tells me about her disabled granddaughter and the joy and normalcy the volunteers were able to provide her.

“And of course, my granddaughter, she was the one we had to pick up and put in the bed. She wanted to come back here when she came home the first time [after Hurricane Harvey]. And she just wouldn’t accept the fact that that was our bedroom, at that time, in the living room.”

Linda continued to tell me about her granddaughter. She never mentioned how rough the last six months had been on her or her family, instead choosing to tell me only about the happy moments.

“So the other day, when she [my granddaughter] got here, we had already got the bed in here [the bedroom], finally. So we told her, ‘Let’s go to bed.’ She just stood there and looked like ‘Okay, where’s it at?’ So we said it was back in the bedroom, let’s go. And she just started laughing all the way back here. Walked around the bed, just like she’s supposed to, and got up on that bed, just like she was supposed to, dying laughing…. It’s like her world’s back. It is so cute.”

Her world was back to normal. Just like it should be.

FOOTNOTES
Photo & Story Credit: Anne Plummer for All Hands and Hearts

Aransas Pass, TX, USA