It is quiet in our house. 

Not the brand new quiet after your youngest has left the nest for good. Or the agonizing silence after the loss of a much-loved pet.

This quiet is blissful. Restorative.

Our house has endured a cacophony of sound in the past four weeks. Splashing water overflowing the laundry room sink signaled the beginning of trouble. Eventually, jackhammers created a canyon through the cement in our once-finished basement, allowing the plumbing crew to remove and replace the decaying cast iron sewer main. 

But it was the legion of whirring fans that burrowed into my consciousness, an incessant hum that left me feeling hollow and on edge: fans to dry out the drywall, fans to assist in asbestos abatement, crinkling the plastic that wrapped our basement and stairwell for almost a week, and fans to eliminate the last stubborn wet spot in the shower pan. 

It is quiet now. The basement has been returned to its studs. It is ready to be rebuilt. I feel a seed of hope take root. Perhaps I will sleep through the night.

*****

The day after the flood and the dire sewer main diagnosis, Jared, our mitigation specialist, arrived. He pulled up at the curb, behind a caravan of plumbing trucks, in a blue truck with the word “RESTORATION” clearly spelled out on the door in capital letters. After placing booties over his shoes at the doorstep — a kind gesture, but at that point a laughable attempt to spare our home from more dust — he surveyed the broken basement. 

Eventually, he sat down with us, with an admirable bedside manner, to detail the steps that were necessary to restore our home. Before he got to the nitty-gritty and depressing details, however, he shared a bit of his history. Turns out Jared spent three years at a Buddhist monastery. “Don’t recommend,” he said. But as he talked about his reentry into the “real world,” he noted that he was intentional about his job search. No longer did he want money to be the goal; he wanted his work to matter, to help. And it does. He meets people in low places, people numb and reeling, people undone by disasters big and small. He does what we are called to do in a very tangible way: heal brokenness.

As the fans have rattled and rumbled these past four weeks, Jared has moved in and out of our home, orchestrating the mitigation and abatement portions of the restoration paradigm. He removed the fans today. His work here is done. 

*****

I am almost embarrassed to admit how unsettling this episode in the life on Wolff Street has been for me. I have felt displaced, even though we never had to leave our home. I have lived through harder things. Life here has been loud and inconvenient, to be sure, but the basement can be fixed and objects can be replaced. I recognize the blessings all around me, despite the chaos and noise. It’s as if my observational skills have been heightened, my awareness enhanced. Small moments of grace abound.

The first weekend we were without a washer and dryer, I ventured to the laundromat down the street. Usually capable and confident, I was out of sorts, completely out of my comfort zone as I navigated the process, counting out quarters and trying to acclimate myself to a new space.

As I pulled wet towels and sheets out of the washing machine, an elderly gentleman waved me over. Unable to communicate in English, he gestured with his hands, inviting me to put my weighty bundle into his open dryer, gifting me the 15 minutes left in the cycle he had paid for. Something unclenched inside of me. I smiled and offered a quiet “gracias” before he walked out the door, laundry basket in hand. 

I was left sitting, watching the dryer spin, listening to the sudsy rhythm of  washers swishing and swirling behind me. 

Yes. We, all of us, are in the restoration business.

Header photo by Bluepikachu on Unsplash
Fan photo by Guille B on Unsplash
Jackhammer photo by jesse orrico on Unsplash
Laundromat photo by Mike Balbus on Unsplash