Still Standing

Last week I took a trip to Florida to see two of my siblings who have second homes in Fort Meyers. I was scheduled for an early flight and booked an Uber to pick me up at 4:00 a.m. Twenty minutes prior, when I was ready to go and hadn’t got a text from the driver, I checked the app and discovered that the credit card linked to my account was one that had fraud on it last month. The payment never went through which I didn’t know. I had a slight panic attack, threw my luggage in the car and drove to the airport – the brand new Kansas City airport that was having its debut that very morning. I was low on gas and high on adrenaline, and as soon as I walked through the doors I wanted to turn around, walk out, and drive back home. Traveling without Mark is hard, he loved to go just about anywhere, was always content to be in the window seat and take it all in, and loved the sun. Escaping the gray days of winter to relax where it was warm might have required some arm twisting if he was busy at work, but I knew from experience that once committed he would have loved every minute.

While walking to my gate, I passed a crowd of construction workers in neon vests and hard hats and found out they were one of hundreds who built this new airport and were there to watch the first flight take off. As I was already a bit shaky on this whole trip thing it could have sent me spiraling, but they looked so proud and I remembered when Mark and I were dating and he’d drive me past some of the roofing jobs he did. “This will still be standing long after I’m gone,” he would boast, and so I hung around with the trades and watched as a Southwest flight left the gate and taxied to the runway.

The sun and heat did me a world of good as most days we hung out at the pool. There are plenty of activities to do in their complex, and I thought “so this is what retirement looks like,” knowing with certainty that even if Mark were alive and well he could never do it. After a few weeks he’d be climbing the walls, driving me crazy, and desperately wanting to be back in the science game instead of on a pickleball court. The man had things to do and relaxing wasn’t one of them.

The last night I was there we drove to Fort Meyers Beach which was directly in the path of Hurricane Ian. Much had been cleaned up, my brother-in-law said, and yet the devastation was staggering. Whole houses gone, others stripped of everything inside, boats in the marina piled on top of each other, no trespassing signs on lots reduced to a pile of rubble. The expensive newer homes were still standing and looked to have minimal damage, but the framed homes that had been there for decades, the old-timers the town was built around were obliterated. Every single thing inside swept out to sea with the storm surge. How do you calculate your losses when everything you own is gone, not even a photo left of your life? I felt that destruction in my bones while over and over seeing spray-painted signs reminding people of #FMS (Fort Meyers Strong).

I lived many secure years in the house Mark and I built and was certain it was indestructible until the morning he left it and never came back. The house is still there, but for the life of me, despite how much I try, I cannot get it to stand as straight or beautiful as it once did. I thought that was what was expected of me, what my job was in Mark’s absence, when what it needs most is for the foundation to be shored up. That is an ongoing project, and so I will plant a sign in my yard that says I’m not strong at all but I knew to salvage every broken thing that both of us knew was important, while telling every passerby that they should have seen my house when the storm hit.

I couldn’t even open the door and get out.