Christmas is usually a time for joy and happiness. It is usually a time when my family and I will decorate our home in many festive colors.
This year is much different. Back in October, Hurricane Sandy devastated my family, destroying our home. Between the water damage and the storm damage, what is left is not suitable for anyone to live in.
My family had gone to a shelter to be able to make it through the storm. Once the storm was over, we remained in the shelter for almost two weeks. After that, we moved from one friend and family member’s house to another. We no longer have a permanent home.
I’m Jamie, the oldest of the three children. I spent most of my time babysitting, watching my two younger brothers argue and fight constantly. It became the one constant that I was able to hold onto in my life. We’ve been staying with my grandmother now before she heads to Florida for the winter.
On Thanksgiving, the table at my grandmother’s house is set up with many delicious foods, but I am not really hungry. I miss my home and my friends. If we still had our home, I would have been able to have Thanksgiving at my house, instead of here. I don’t like all of the changes that were caused by the hurricane. I thought that once the storm was over, everything would go back to normal, but it hasn’t.
The amusement park that I went to every summer is now destroyed. The rollercoaster became a part of the Atlantic Ocean; the bumper cars were tossed around; and the roads on Long Beach Island were buried in sand. I had my first kiss and my first date there. I loved Seaside Heights. Now it is a shadow of what it once was. Most of the area is destroyed and lies in ruins. The hurricane decimated everything that I had loved about the area.
When my parents went to get some of our clothing together, they found that they could not even get back into the house. I wondered why they had come back empty handed that day, but they tried to avoid upsetting me and my brothers. They did not want me to know we had no home to go back to. Eventually when my parents told me, and I asked if FEMA would help us get a new home. My mom explained that FEMA had already exhausted what help they offer displaced families.
On the Friday after Thanksgiving, when my parents go to buy a couple of small items for her brothers, I ask if the boys would like to write letters to Santa.
I give each of them some crayons and some paper and help them to write what they want for Christmas. My littlest brother, Mikey, want only five toys this year, while my other brother, Tyler, is a little more secretive about his letter.
When I ask him what he is asking Santa for, he tells me that I will think it is stupid. I finally make him tell me after a lot of begging and pleading. He tells me that this year he only wants to ask Santa for one thing: a new home for his family for the holidays.
He tells me that he could not stand the idea of having to move again. He say, because grandma will be heading down to Florida soon, we need to move in with Uncle Robert in January.
When my parents get home, I hand them the letters. I tell them that Mikey wants five toys that he had seen online and on TV.
Then I tell them about what Tyler wants. I tell them I had even tried to talk him into changing it, but all he wants is a home for the holidays. I tell them how he almost cried telling me that he hates moving like this.
I’m about to start crying myself when I tell my parents about the letter to Santa. I knew how Tyler felt, because I feel the same way.
I know it’s not their fault. I know my parents are trying, but I still ask them if we will ever have our own home again. I just want us to be able to live in a real home, not feeling like a burden in the guest bedrooms, basements, and three-season porches where people have a spare couch or chair or stretch of floor they are willing to lay a sleeping bag down for us. I am really happy that we have had anywhere to go, but I feel so awful. I hate wondering where my brothers and I will be sleeping in a few weeks.
I want to go home. Wherever that may be now.
Will we have a new house anytime soon? My father’s job was also destroyed during the hurricane. So now we rely on the money Mom makes for everything. Her job pays just enough to cover bills. How will we ever be able to afford to purchase a new home, or even rent one?
I know I have to continue to care for my brothers, while my parents try to find a way to support us and make things better. My father can’t have the boys with him while he is looking for work, so I tell my parents that I will babysit my brothers without it costing them anything. I figure this helps them save on a babysitter.
I want to try to find a job for the weekends, if there is anyone hiring. Maybe some place like McDonald’s would be willing to hire me, because I am young and can afford to work part-time. My parents say that they appreciated what I want to help, but that I cannot get the job. They tell me that they need me to stay at grandma’s house, because we never know when a potential employer will call for my father.
As Christmas grows closer, my father finally finds a job working at a local pizza joint. He works opposite hours of my mom to try to give me more time to enjoy being a normal fifteen-year-old. They want me to hang out with friends and have some fun. They feel badly having me watch the boys all the time, and worry I’m missing out on fun events.
I’d feel a lot more normal and open to ‘fun’ if I wasn’t terrified I’ll have to move to Connecticut before the next semester starts.
On Christmas morning, my brothers and I are the first ones up. We head down to grandma’s kitchen, where I cook breakfast for everyone and start the coffee for the adults. Once breakfast is ready, I send the boys on a mission to wake everyone up by singing Christmas carols. Tyler and Mikey do a wonderful job and have a lot of fun.
After breakfast, everyone sits in the living room where Tyler helps me hand out presents to our grandmother, our parents, Uncle Robert, and to Mikey and each other. There aren’t too many presents this year, but we expected that.
When the presents are all opened and nothing is left behind, I feel my heartbreak as Tyler jumps up and runs into the guest bedroom he’s been sharing with Mikey.
I tell me parents I’ll get him. I know what upset him.
When I make it to the room, Tyler is crying. I lie down next to him, trying to cheer him up by telling him that maybe a new home was too hard of a gift for Santa to give us this year. Like how FEMA only has so much it can give, maybe Santa needs to save up for a while.
Tyler tells me that it is not fair. He had been a really good boy this year and he should get what he asked for. Mikey, after all, got all five of his presents.
I’m rubbing Tyler’s back as he cries face-down into a pillow when there’s a knock on the bedroom door.
Grandma is standing there, still dressed in her Christmas nightgown but with a pair of old reindeer antlers in her gray hair. She tells Tyler that there’s one gift left.
He wipes at his eyes with his sleeves and asks her what she means: we went through all the stockings and the presents under the tree.
Grandma smiles and her eyes almost twinkle. She leads Tyler by one hand, and he leads me out with the other, towards the modestly decorated tree.
She tells us that there is an envelope hiding in the tree this year. She plucks it down and hands it to Tyler. It has his name on it. From Santa.
I look to my parents and Uncle Robert now, and see them smiling as if they know a secret. My dad tells Tyler to be careful when he opens the envelope.
Inside is the deed to our grandmother’s house. She tells Tyler that Santa showed her his letter and that was when she made up her mind. She had not told anyone that she wasn’t just spending time in Florida this year, but actually planning to move there full time.
So she gave Santa the deed to the property already signed and notarized. She said that she was also going to pay for the taxes and the cost of the transfer of ownership on the house. “So Jamie, Tyler, and Mikey would all be able to have their home for the holidays,” she says.
She says that she is getting too old to make the trip back and forth anyway. And our family needs a new home… as long as she can borrow the guest bedroom to come visit once in a while.
Uncle Robert even jokes that he is happy he doesn’t have to share his home now, so we don’t cramp his bachelor style.
I hug my grandma and thank her, as do the rest of the family. But no one more than Tyler.
I tell my mom and dad that this was the best thing anyone could have ever done for our family. Grandma’s still smiling though, and asks Tyler to look in the bottom of the envelope.
There’s another present… for me this time.
Grandma tells me that she wanted to do something special, because I had done so much to make things work for the family. She says that I deserve a chance to get away.
I grin at the present: one plane ticket to visit my grandmother in Florida in June. I can’t wait to spend two weeks of summer vacation in Daytona with my grandmother!
The Hurricane took away our old lives, but my grandmother found a way to give us a new one. For that, I will always be thankful.
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There are still many people like me and my family, old friends and neighbors, who are struggling to pull their lives back together this 2012 holiday season after Superstorm Sandy. Please, consider donating time, money, food, or clothes to a local relief drive near you.
Disaster can strike anywhere, any time. You don’t have to wait for the adults in your life to take the steps to be prepared. Learn more about Disaster Preparedness by visiting these links: