What Really Matters

As I sit down to write this, another storm is dumping wet, heavy snow on Staten Island—an area already devastated by the effects of Hurricane Sandy. There are people whose homes are partially or fully destroyed, families without power and heat, who refuse to leave their homes because they fear looters will take whatever is left of their precious possessions. Mothers and fathers in the street, on their hands and knees, combing through piles of debris just to salvage one memory, one piece of normalcy.

And my kids are actually bickering over toys. It is taking every ounce of restraint I have not to scream at them.

After this past week, my patience has worn thin. I have tried to explain to my kids, as gently and compassionately as possible, how their friends and neighbors lost so much more than electricity due to Sandy. My children were very upset about losing power for so many days, but I needed them to understand what a minor inconvenience that was compared to how others were truly suffering.

I must have had a dozen “teachable moments” over the past week. But I found myself at a loss for words over and over again. My own emotions continually overcame me, moments when I learned of two little children washed away by the storm, read about so many storm-related deaths, saw the destruction of homes only blocks away, and spoke to mothers who had no idea where to even begin to replace the things that their children had lost. I looked into the eyes of children who came to school with no coat, and tried to find a donated one for them in our school’s hastily set up “lobby shop,” waiting until they walked away to cry.

How could I effectively communicate with my own children when I couldn’t make sense of the devastation myself?

I have never been particularly attached to material things. But this time around, I couldn’t honestly say that material things didn’t matter. They do. We have connection to our possessions, especially those things like pictures and Christmas ornaments, that represent security, memories, and pieces of our lives. To see them ravaged by wind and water, lying in a pile of debris on the side of the road, is unfathomable. It is soul-crushing. The loss feels like a black hole that you cannot climb out of.

So how could any of us tell our kids that things don’t matter? Walk into any donation collection and distribution center in the five boroughs of New York City and you can easily see how things like warm clothes, coats, blankets, batteries and flashlights do matter. These are essential to living safely right now. And if you walk the streets where the worst damage occurred, you can hear women sobbing over their kids’ baby and graduation pictures, water logged and ruined, the storm having savagely ripped out a piece of their soul.

I tried over and over to explain to my kids how blessed they were to merely lose power and relocate temporarily compared to what others had lost. My older one, who is eight, wasn’t getting it, so I took him to deliver food and supplies at a donation center out in one of the hardest-hit communities. When he saw the debris on the roadside, he asked me if they were donations. When I explained that the debris was actually destroyed pieces of people’s lives, his eyes opened wide and he sucked in a breath. He was starting to get it.

Of course, I had to walk the fine line between showing him what his neighbors were experiencing and not traumatizing him completely. Truthfully, he did have two dreams where he saw waves of water crashing against our home, which made me feel guilty for sharing too much with him. And yet, when he returned to school, he seemed better able to cope with the many, many families that had lost so much because he was aware and empathetic. He experienced the emotions, the fear and the hope, as hard as it was for both of us.

It is going to be a very long road to recovery for everyone who lives here. I have seen and heard things over the past few days that I wished I had never been exposed to. But we cannot put our heads in the sand, we cannot ignore our neighbors. We have to face the hard stuff, and that means being aware of it, and when appropriate, sharing with our children. It means recognizing that sometimes things do have value beyond material worth. It means that sometimes we cannot preserve our children’s innocence even when every fiber of our maternal being is screaming to protect them from such loss and destruction.

Because with that devastation comes opportunity to make a difference. I have seen so much good come out of so much sadness. I have watched complete strangers make the lives of others better, more tolerable, giving them hope. People have been generous with their time, money, and possessions. When put to the test, we have been good to each other.

And so there is a balance. I want my kids to see that, too. I want them to know that there is goodness out there to counteract things like natural disasters and man-made ones. I want them to know it’s important and necessary to ask for help when you need it, without shame or apology. And I want them to understand it is their responsibility to help other people when they are in the position to do so. It is their duty as human beings.

I wish Hurricane Sandy never happened, but it did, and we have to squeeze whatever good we can out of a miserable situation. And we have to keep helping each other in all ways.

So many teachable moments. So many more to come. I’m not sure I’m doing it right, but I am sure that we can’t teach our kids to ignore events like this completely, as then they will never learn to cope, have compassion, or be inspired to volunteer. Because they, like the rest of us, need to accept that certain things—both tangible and intangible—matter.

If anyone would like to donate to Hurricane Sandy relief efforts, please visit the Steven Siller Foundation at www.tunnelstotowers.org

* This article originally appeared on The Mommy Vortex.