Chapter 5
Roxane's stories / other stories
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Paige Caves
June 9th 2021
A night I’ll never forget & a night that changed my life forever, it traumatised me so much, that I no longer feel safe, not just in my home, but also in many aspects, especially around large trees, I have always loved and appreciated the trees & forest, this event fractured my life in more ways than one.
Needless to say we are eternally grateful no one was injured or killed, yet the trauma is real and the fallout continues……..
The finish line to our repairs still eludes us, almost three years on, it’s very long time out if my life, at my age and with significant health issues, I also live with chronic pain 24/7, which sadly have been magnified since this storm event, apparently myself or my home aren’t easily mended…..
Memories of that night…….
“A moonless night, a tempest, a wind raging, rain blowing horizontally across the sky
unforgiving, relentless wind and rain…….
It felt like fate was somehow teetering on a precipice that night……
A heart stopping moment, it seemed nature had conspired a tale of absolute terror to haunt me forever
A crash, a noise so indescribable, incomprehensible
a towering gum, that once stood sentinel, now lay splintering and splitting our home,
I could see the sky where roof should be, garden where walls once stood
I stood still, paralysed unable to move, unable to find thoughts, let alone find words
The cacophony of the storm still clearly raged….
but reality somehow stalled, it left me suspended in an unreality, unable to comprehend
Time elapsed, yet time stood still, half my home lay destroyed, wreckage strewn,
then echoes begin to enter my mind, reality starts to dawn, I shake uncontrollably
Crushed furniture, where my son had been just moments before,
I cry, I shake, I felt defeated and crumpled to my knees
Wounds of that night will always linger, a giant, leaving such destruction in it’s wake, it’s forever etched in my mind as my soul lay shattered that night, as shattered as my home
Time elapses, yet wounds still unhealed, some festering in hopelessness
The prospect of recovery was bright to start, now in a shroud that suffocates the hope
My garden gone, scaffolding, an intricate lattice of shattered promises, and builders lies, stare me in the face daily
Hope fades of the safe home I once knew, a complete home
Flashbacks and nightmares can never be resolved, looking at a personal war zone as a daily reminder
Our home while now structurally sound, is fragmented to what once was,
there are still gaping wounds in my dwelling, that stares as stark testament to my ordeal, maybe when my home is healed, I can heal?
As I navigate this uncertain path, I yearn for the day I have my home back, my garden back
The scaffolding down, maybe nightmares will subside when my home is restored
Until then I am a wanderer in the landscape of my own despair, clinging to a fragile hope that one day my sanctuary will be regained”