To move forward, we must look back
Last September, my family was gearing up for our first “leaf season” (and apple season, and hayride season, and football season) in Haywood County. As recent transplants from another state, we had heard about how beautiful the mountains are in early fall, and we were looking forward to experiencing it.
Then Hurricane Helene hit. This September, amid my enjoyment of the cool weather and the first crunch of leaves on the ground, I have also noticed a periodic sense of dread in my fluttering stomach or clenched jaw. I might not have recognized it if I hadn’t experienced something similar the year after my father died: with the return of the weather in which we buried him, my submerged grief returned to the surface.
This is how trauma works. It is not just a memory we recall in our minds; it is an experience we store in our bodies. Sometimes, because we struggle to process traumatic events consciously, our bodies remember what our minds cannot. In the aftermath of Helene, so many people I spoke with were struggling to string sentences together or to sleep through the night. Business owners were exhausted from mucking out their shops as well as their homes. Police officers were raw from the overwhelming wreckage they were being asked to manage. School teachers were frantically trying to contact and support the families in their care. It would not surprise me if many of us are beginning to recall these difficult feelings or memories unintentionally as the one-year mark of the storm approaches.
The question then becomes: what do we do with the dread or the grief when it creeps up? The most natural thing to do is probably to ignore it. This is one reason we are so adept at entertainment and distraction. It’s much easier to anesthetize ourselves to pain than it is to let ourselves feel it. But some of us, from a desire to put our pain to good use, tend to channel our grief into activism or recovery efforts. This is admirable, and one of the most inspiring things I witnessed last year: as a newcomer to the area, I was awed by the unique resilience and grit of a community that rallied together to help each other in the wake of a tragedy. But as I wrote then, resilience doesn’t nullify trauma. And even first-responders and community organizers and brave parents and generous neighbors need to let down and be restored.
As we approach the one-year anniversary of a life-altering event, one of the most important ways we can continue to move forward is by giving each other permission to look back and grieve. Attending to the pain our bodies still carry isn’t a sign of weakness or fragility, but a sacred aspect of our recovery work. This fall, #HaywoodStrong might look like remembering hard things, sharing our stories and letting ourselves feel the heaviness of what we’ve endured.
As a pastor, I have found that this kind of work is best done through rituals that engage the body and take place in community. It could be as simple as sitting around a campfire and adding a stick to the flames with each memory shared. It could be as formal as attending a church or synagogue or other public ceremony with the intention to reflect on the last year. I was deeply encouraged to hear about the upcoming Helene Remembrance Ceremony from 9-11 a.m. Sept. 27 at the Haywood County Courthouse in Waynesville and believe that such a gathering could be both honoring to the past and healing in the present. I am also grateful to the many mental healthcare providers that have offered free and discounted services to those in need.
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In my own faith tradition, remembrance is a central aspect of worship and of life. In our chief ritual, the Lord’s Supper, we break bread and remember a horrific moment in history when a man was crucified. But as we take and eat, we rehearse — with our bodies — how something tragic can be transfigured into something redemptive. It is a kind of moving forward that begins with a willingness to look back. This, I believe, is part of the hard work of hope. I am so grateful to be doing that hard work here with my neighbors in Haywood County.
(Hannah Miller King is a priest and writer serving at The Vine Anglican Church in Clyde. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)
