The Worst Experience of My Life

 

            It was a bright and sunny day in Sanford, North Carolina and I was just enjoying some quality family time with my newborn nephew, Joey, and the rest of my family when we got the alert. A major hurricane was about to hit the coast of Long Island in just two days time. We had only arrived one day earlier to welcome Joey into the world and already our trip was cut short. My sisters Erika, Sara, and I hurried to pack our belongings, purchased some flashlights and other “hurricane gear”, and sadly said our goodbyes as we headed out to drive the eight hours back home to New York.

            My oldest sister Erika and I live together in a small ranch house in East Rockaway, New York. Little did I know, several canals on either side of our street are surrounding our house. Upon our arrival back home, we began to attempt to raise whatever belongings we could both in our house and in our garage. As we were doing that, men were coming through the streets with megaphones insisting that everyone must evacuate to higher ground.  While I was already panic stricken and quite upset, little rain droplets began to fall from the sky. I knew it was time to go; we had no more time to save our precious belongings. I grabbed my cat and some of my things and headed out to stay with my best friend in Franklin Square. Meanwhile, my sister sent her two cats to stay with a friend and she went to stay at her boyfriend’s house in Oceanside.

            I spent that entire night and the following two days at my friend’s house just worrying. Worrying about my house, worrying about my sister, worrying about what I would come home to when I was finally able to return. In the days following Hurricane Sandy I felt numb. My life as I knew it was about to change for quite some time. We went home a few days after the storm and discovered that our house and garage had been filled with about four feet of water. The damage was absolutely devastating. After crying and crying my sister and I began to sort through all of our stuff. Years of memories washed away in an instant. I didn’t know what to do.

            Hurricane Sandy hit us hard. It kept us out of our house for almost two whole years. It washed away years and years of memories that we had both collected throughout our lives. While I will never be able to retrieve those belongings, and while I felt pretty much homeless as I floated between friends’ homes until our house was rebuilt, I did learn a lot about myself from this storm. Hurricane Sandy taught me that stuff is just that, stuff. The memories are still ingrained in my mind and that is worth more than the “stuff” that I had collected. Also, Sandy showed me that I am a lot more resilient and strong than I ever thought I could be. My sister and I went through a lot because of Hurricane Sandy and I will never be the person that I was prior to the storm, but I am a better person and now I can be an even better mother to my baby when I teach her all about the power of resilience and fighting back.

Vocabulary

evacuate (verb) to leave or go away

damage (noun) something that has been physically harmed or changed in a bad way
devastating (verb) very damaging and causing a lot of sadness or despair
retrieve(verb) to get something
ingrained (verb) stuck deeply and hard to remove
resilient (adjective) able to bounce back or recover from a difficult problem

Vocabulary Exercise 

Match each vocabulary word to the phrase that best defines it.

1. resilient                                                       a. the act of leaving an area

2. retrieve                                                       b. to be difficult to get rid of 

3. evacuate                                                     c. the act of getting something

4. damage                                                      d. something that has been harmed or hurt

5. ingrained                                                   e. something that is extremely harmful; causes sadness

6. devastating                                                f. able to overcome a difficult situation

Grammar Point 

This particular blog post is talking about an event that happened in my past. Adding -ed to the ending of most words will make it past tense. For instance, let's look at the word evacuate. To make evacuate a verb in the past tense we simply add -ed to the end of the word, thus making it evacuated. However, there are times where this rule does not apply. For example, certain words are what we would consider exceptions to the rule, such as, begin. The verb begin becomes began when written in the past tense. Instead of adding -ed, you change the 'i' to an 'a'. Understanding these exceptions is a skill that will be learned with practice. 

Grammar Exercise 

Complete this worksheet for extra practice using simple past tense verbs

 Go to the following link to play a fun game and practice irregular past tense verbs!

Irregular Past Tense Jeopardy Quiz Game