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Hey friend!
It’s been a few days since Hurricane Melissa tore through Jamaica.
A category 5 storm that left parts of the island unrecognizable.
I lost power for a few days.
Lost a few fruit trees too.
But that’s nothing compared to what happened farther west.
I’ve seen videos of places I grew up visiting
now nothing but mud, debris, and silence.
Boats sitting where houses used to be.
Cars covered in mud
Families sleeping without a roof over their heads, praying the rain doesn’t return.
Every time I open social media, my stomach tightens.
It’s like reliving the same heartbreak on loop.
If you saw the footage without knowing the story,
you’d swear a bomb was dropped here.
And maybe in some ways, one was
a storm that didn’t just destroy things,
but cracked something open inside us.
The hardest part is the guilt.
Survivor’s guilt.
Knowing my power’s back on,
while others are still searching through what’s left of theirs.
We keep saying “Jamaicans are resilient,” and we are
but resilience doesn’t mean we don’t feel broken.
It doesn’t mean the ache goes away.
I’ve spoken to a lot of friends this week.
Some flooded out
Some still can’t get in contact with their people,
Others like me where nothing major happened
All of us lost something we can’t quite name.
And one thing’s for sure
we’re all going to need some therapy after this.
Till tomorrow,
Stephen “Still standing, still healing” Stanberry
P.S. Hold space for those rebuilding tonight. Sometimes the strongest thing you can do is just care.
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