Counting down to 1 year

Today marked the 109th anniversary of the 1900 hurricane, and the start of a weeklong series of events to help us get through this first anniversary of Ike. We’re celebrating how far we’ve come, reflecting on the past year and letting go once again.

For me, this week began with a visit from an old friend. Twenty-something years ago, we were in high school band together. We reconnected a year or so ago via MySpace (although we’ve both progressed to the more grown-up world of Facebook). This weekend, he and his family came to Galveston for a visit. While reconnecting with one old friend, I let go of another.

Both of us were trumpet players and he’s probably the only person who inquired about my old trumpet after the storm. In our conversations, I told him that the trumpet had been in the garage, which had some 6 or 7 feet of water in it, and I had not been able to open the case.

I’m sure if I had persisted, I could have gotten that case open. But more than the physical obstacle, was the emotional obstacle. I had a crew clear out and gut my house after the storm and they left me a small pile of things to sort through the garage – stuff that might be salvageable as it were. But in sorting through, I saw things in conditions I should never have seen. I saw the Madame Alexander doll I put out at Christmas with her head in pieces. Just walking in my house after the storm was enough to see – my piano smashed, mold growing in my books, my furniture falling apart. It’s an image no one should ever have to see and one that is hard to get out of my head. Granted, it’s nothing compared to the atrocities some see every day, but in my world, it was heartbreaking.

So the thought of seeing yet another thing I had such good memories of in some unknown state of horror was too much. But I could never bring myself to toss the trumpet in the trash. I just couldn’t. For a year, it has sat on a shelf in my garage. Until my friend and his family came to visit.

He was a trumpet player - still is. And he wants to teach his children to play as well. So we agreed that the trumpet would have a good chance at a new life with him. He took the trumpet home, opened the case and saw a horn in relatively decent condition. Part of the valves disintegrated in Ike’s waters. But overall, it’s definitely in better shape than I had imagined.

I have many fond memories with that horn, and I am delighted that it will have a chance at a third life.

Seems fitting that the trumpet found its new home this week. One year later. Just another reminder that Ike didn’t take everything away with it. Life just got a little tarnished and this past year seems to have been about polishing that tarnish away.