Ashleigh

It was terrifying flying over here on the plane. I’m not scared of flying, I was just so scared that our house wasn’t going to make it. But we had no choice but to leave. Either that or risk facing Hurricane Irma. My family and I were praying all the time now that God would keep us and our house safe, and everyone else and their houses safe, too. In times like this, it’s so hard to trust that someone who is in control of everything, and loves everything he created would let something like this happen. I really hoped my friends were okay. I wouldn’t know for a while.

Which means I didn’t know how long we’d be here, either. That depended on whether Irma wanted to pass through our neighborhood and destroy our house. By now, everyone who lives there should have evacuated.  I guess I haven’t officially introduced myself. My name is Ashleigh Suits and I’m from Orlando, Florida( , but we had to evacuate to Cleveland because our family lives here). I’m thirteen years old, and I have a mom, a dad, a ten year old brother named Harrington, and a six(, almost seven) year old sister named Caroline. Every night we would turn on the news, waiting to hear some good news for once, because all we ever heard about was the hurricane.

My grandparents picked us up from the airport, along with my cousins. We’d missed them all so much, but my family and I weren’t as cheerful as we usually would have been when we saw them. You could probably guess why. It wasn’t the happiest family reunion, but we made the most of it. When we got to my grandparents’ house, my cousin I’m closest to, Patricia, brought me to this big garden in the middle of the city. So many people were there planting tomatoes, goldenrod, and all sorts of things, or just helping each other out. There were so many different smells; the fruits and vegetables looked delicious. Patricia introduced me to her friends, Kim and Wendell. They were both very kind, and from what I had heard, Kim was basically the one who started planting things here and slowly, everyone else began to get involved for different reasons.

“He died when I was very young, so I never really knew him,” Kim told me. She had been planting lima beans in honor of her father. “My mother and sisters and I recently mourned the anniversary of his death, and ever since then I’ve been coming here, planting lima beans for him,” she told me. Wendell had lost his son to a shotgun, and his wife to a car accident, and came to the garden to help Kim plant her seeds. Patricia already knew all about this, but I think that she wanted me to hear it from them. That night, Patricia and I prayed for Kim and her mother and sisters, and for Wendell.

The next day, I decided I wanted to plant something in the garden. I asked Patricia where I could get some violet seeds. She brought me to a flower shop, and asked one of the florists where we could find some. To my surprise, she just brought us some for free! Patricia told me as we walked out that the florists here also sell seeds, but she came there a lot so they didn’t mind handing them out to her sometimes. We went down to the garden, met Kim and Wendell, and we all planted them together.

That night, we turned on the news like we did every night, but this time was different.