“Nothing lasts forever; Not even the mountains"

The truth sucker punches me. I desperately gasp for breath. The feelings are familiar and reminiscent of hearing one of my favorite people has surrendered to the defeat of cancer. “It’s time,” he said. The three months of intensive chemotherapy were too much. Gruesome. It ravaged his body and spit out his soul. But the hospice nurse said his physical figure has seven days left. There’s still too much life in it. A contradiction. Hope deteriorated. Frustration and anger set in. It’s not fair. It’s cruel.

This is cruel.

As I walk down the beautifully finished steps, my fingers dance on the white banister. The ledge, which is usually clear, is now cluttered with a stack of paperback books, a broken glass bowl filled with its missing piece and a pile of used paper towels, and a bottle of all-purpose cleaner. Upon reaching the ceramic tiled landing, the horror sets in. Water is everywhere and the last several weeks’ worth of cleaning has evaporated. The surfaces we scrubbed just this morning to rid the room of mold; the fans and dehumidifier that worked overtime to decrease the humidity; and the furniture we moved around after sweeping and vacuuming the bare cement floors are a distant memory. Everything sits in water that is several inches deep.

I call out his first and last name. An expletive escapes my lips. It’s not directed toward him – the man who has just come inside from checking the gutters, but rather the optimism that is lost. We had just been in here two hours earlier, inspecting the floors amid the tropical storm that threatened to disrupt our peace of mind. The cement had been dry. We did a walk-through, impressed with how far the area had come from just weeks before. Yes, we noticed a spot of moistness in another area, but promised to watch it.

The dreadfulness began in early July with a monsoon-type rain. Convinced it was due to clogged gutters, my other half cleaned them. Days later, he checked again and cleaned them again. Then, he did it a third time. He spent so much time thinking about the state of the gutters, a paranoia and acceptance set in. He kept a ladder leaning against the house. He went up to the roof in slip-on sandals. He began conversations as he leaned over the spouts and dilly-dallied. He even played a quick game of hide and seek and snuck around to the back of the chimney. (That cracked me up! Especially when he said, “You can’t see me,” in a singsong tone.)

The rains didn’t let up and in the course of twenty-seven days the area flooded three separate times. We borrowed two shop vacuums and bought one of our own, purchased additional fans so three fans and a dehumidifier ran at all hours, eventually skyrocketing our electric bill. We removed the once beautiful wall-to-wall carpeting, laughing about the shit-show that came seemingly out of nowhere. We discovered cracks underneath the rug that were probably deep enough to reach China. We named the main one “The Mississippi” and tracked the runoff that came from beneath the floor.

We’ve loved the basement from the moment we saw it and depended on the extra finished space that boasts a wet bar and half bathroom. We recall a time when we used the room to host a Christmas party with twenty-five guests; the friends who used the area as their personal room when they stayed overnight, and my summer sanctuary away from the upstairs heat. It had been a room where I practiced yoga, watched movies, or rode the spin bike. It had been my refuge.

As if the frequent arrival of water weren’t enough to chip away at my sanity, humidity bullied its way up to the main level. Our hardwood floors endure the abuse. Black mold spots appear. Doors refuse to easily close and I curse the fifty-nine-year-old house and the previous owners who half-assed their home improvement upgrades. I am particularly irked by the one who put in crank windows making window air conditioner units virtually impossible, and the one who mangled the electrical wiring so the microwave and downstairs shop vac cannot be used at the same time.

We called professionals asking for consultations to prevent future floods but the soonest appointment was two months out. I asked my manager for a recommendation to transfer to an affiliate in Arizona, New Mexico, or Nevada after the third flood. I proposed, half kidding, running away before this last storm, ensuring we could reach Ohio in eight hours.

And now, as my flip-flops traipse through the water, I’m on the verge of adding my own tears to the mess. I’m void of laughter or a sense of humor. I have no energy or sanity left for the situation. We still have two weeks before the soonest appointment.