The scenes of destruction left in the wake of Hurricane Melissa has been heartwrenching for my family. In a mere 24 hours, the normally harmless act of not answering a WhatsApp call has gone from a minor inconvenience to an anxiety-filled, slow dread as we desperately try to reach cousins, brothers, uncles, and aunts on the tiny island. My mother’s TV seems only to play one of two things: news coverage of the Storm and Gospel services, as if in hope that the latter will influence the former.
My sister and mother sat in the living room, crying over scenes of our family’s land being destroyed. And not just in the metaphorical sense, actual owned property where our poorer members of the family used to reside peacefully, is torn asunder. Future stability was blown away alongside the physical structure of their homes. Crops drowned, cattle scattered, security destroyed.
And yet ours is just one story amongst a plethora of others. Some stories are worse, some not, all carrying the same thread of pain caused by one of the deadliest natural disasters to hit the Caribbean. My family needs help. Their families need help. Jamaica needs help.
