A woman over 60 who never complained.
Grace under fire.
She Never Complained
I didn’t even know the hurricane was coming.
Not until one of my brothers called and said,
“Monica, get out of Lake Charles. It’s coming. It’s coming.”
That’s how quickly things shifted. That’s how thin the thread was.
The house I was living in at the time had history—my parents built it. Years later, my ex-husband and I bought it together. By the time Hurricane Laura came barreling toward the Louisiana coast, he had long since moved out of state. I think he was in Oklahoma then.
So it was just me.
Me, and two roommates.
One of them was my sister.
My sister, Melba Jean, was 82.
We called her Songbird. She had the most beautiful voice and sang Count Your Blessings every day of her life—literally. She had dementia, and it had progressed to the point where it wasn’t safe for her to live alone. Her daughter and I agreed she’d move in with me.
She settled into one of the bedrooms in what was once our parents’ home.
Yes, I’d renovated it. But the bones were still theirs.
And maybe that familiarity brought her some peace.
When the storm came, I loaded her into the car and started driving—seven long hours through pitch black Louisiana roads toward Tyler, Texas to take refuce with my daughter and her family. . There were no lights. No gas stations open. No streetlamps. Just the roar of wind and the beam of headlights moving north.
At one point, my sister looked at me with that soft voice and said,
“Monica, I just can’t hold it anymore.”
She thought we were near an open gas station. We weren’t. But I pulled into the back of the building, told her gently that it was closed, and she stepped onto the sidewalk and relieved herself in the dark.
I never blamed her. Not for a second.
That moment was what it meant to be human in a storm.
When we finally got to Tyler, my daughter had turned a pool cabana into a guest house with two beds. For a week or so, we just camped out. It was quiet. It was slow. And in a strange way, it was peaceful.
My sister didn’t know to be afraid.
That was one of the mercies of dementia—she didn’t carry the trauma of what had just happened.
Every morning, I’d say, “Want to go for a little ride?” or “Let’s go walk down by the lake.”
And she’d smile like it was brand new.
But when we returned to Lake Charles… everything was gone.
No power. No air conditioning. No food security. August heat thick in the walls.
One of my roommates had invited ten displaced people to sleep on our floor.
And there I was, trying to care for my fading sister in the chaos.
And you know what?
She never, ever, ever complained.
Not once.
Not about the storm. Not about the heat. Not about the crowded house. Not about losing the routine she barely understood.
She just trusted me.
She let me lead her.
She gave me a living example of grace under fire.
That storm was the second time I had to rebuild my life.
The first was when my house in northern Virginia burned to the ground.
The second was Hurricane Laura.
The third was when I moved to Lynchburg to build family with a daughter who left within the year, and I had to start from scratch in a city where I knew no one.
Rebuilding has never been a choice for me.
It’s been a calling.
And this last time? I finally let myself rebuild with me at the center.
When I painted this piece—“Laura”—it wasn’t just about the hurricane
.
It was about what came after.
It was about remembering Melba Jean’s trust.
It was about painting the wind, the silence, the surrender, the survival.
It was about honoring that woman inside me who did it all alone—and again.
If You’re Rebuilding, reclaiming a dream, or want to reignite life,
I created something for you.
📘 It’s called REFOUNDATION: Rebuilding a Life That Can Hold You Now.
It’s a guidebook, but more than that—it’s a mirror.
For the woman who’s starting over again.
For the one who never meant to be here, but here she is anyway.
For the one who needs new roots, not just new routines.
.
👉 Get the REFOUNDATION guidebook here
Because if you’re in the dark…
If you’re in the middle of a storm…
Or if you’re just coming out of one—
You are not broken. You are being rebuilt.
And this time?
You get to build a life that can finally hold you.
Beautiful witness to your strength - through any storm. 🙏🏻
This is so profound. Wow. I admire you. 💞