There are too many people to miss
We were in rattly bunk beds on the 2nd floor of an old abandoned, cavernous church in Biloxi, Mississippi.
It felt more like a cleaned out Costco inside.
We’d wake up in the pitch black and Elysa and I would inevitably bump butts as we felt around for our headlamps. It’s always good to start a chilly morning with a laugh.
We’d ramble down and eat breakfast on a mess hall table and then go out to work. I loved working with tools — the circular saw and the nail gun became my best friends. We’d climb ladders to paint the ceilings of Mr. George’s house, devastated from Hurricane Katrina, while singing about “20 inch blades on the Impala.” I think this is because we were short and wished we were a little bit taller — for painting, and life, purposes. Mr. George puttered around with his cane and his smile.
We were a hodge-podge group of volunteers in paint splattered jeans and hoodies, collected by the volunteer organization, Hands On. Some of us were there for our college spring break, others were spending a year there with Americorps, others decided to take off from their life or reinvent their life and were going on three years living in a shed they built behind the church.
After our weeks there, I had built all these new kinds of relationships that only come from everyone being in a third space, away from home, using your hands to build, and working towards something real. These were people I marched around with in Tyvek suits, had sunset drives crammed in a pickup truck back on the obliterated Highway 1, who I shot hoops with during lunch with the locals. As the Class-A sap I’ve always been, I was devastated to leave Biloxi and worried sick I would never see these wonderful people again.
On our last night, after taking another freezing outdoor shower while exclaiming, “WE’RE AT THE BEACH AND WE LOVE IT,” and a viewing of “Rudy” on a random collection of torn couches, I perused a long wall, tacked with notes and pictures of all the people who had circled through this church in Biloxi. And I came across a torn piece of paper that I’ll never forget: “I don’t want to meet anyone else. I’m tired of missing people.” Or maybe it said “ I hate leaving. There are too many people to miss.” This was 15 years ago. I can’t remember it. But I remember the sentiment like it was yesterday.
On that trip, I saw a different way of living and life that I’d yet to be exposed to. I led a group back to Biloxi the next year and it wasn’t quite the same; the alchemy of people had changed.
Here’s the thing: sometimes you don’t ever see a person again. And that can be a bit tragic. But more often than not, I’m realizing I DO see them again. That life circles around itself. That with a little bit of faith, people come in and out and into your life. It’s a wild course, really. And, I’m so grateful to be here for it.
