What the Storm Didn’t Take: A Year Later, A Tribute of Love and Strength

Have you ever felt like the wind was knocked out of you? Like the ground beneath your feet shifted so suddenly that you weren’t sure if you could stand again? Maybe you’ve been there — stuck, lost, and silently wishing for a hug you didn’t know how to ask for.

I was scrolling TikTok the other day and came across a post that stopped me in my tracks. It said:

 “I probably needed a hug, but I decided to…”

Two parts. One reality.

How many times have we found ourselves in that same space? We needed support, but didn’t reach out. Maybe pride got in the way. Maybe fear. Maybe the weight of not wanting to burden anyone else. So instead of asking, we carried it — quietly, heavily, alone.

But then came the second part: I decided.

There’s power in that word. Decide. So often, the things that make us feel lost, hopeless, or broken are reversible — if we decide. And yet, that decision is rarely easy. Sometimes it’s a whisper of strength. Sometimes it’s a roar. Sometimes it’s the slow turning of a page when you thought the chapter was over.

A year ago, I faced one of those moments. Hurricane Helene changed everything.

There are moments in life that divide everything into before and after. For me, the loss of my father during Hurricane Helene was one of those moments. The storm changed everything — not just the landscape around us, but the lives within it. Yet even in the devastation, there were things the storm could not take: the love, the faith, and the strength we discovered in one another.

I remember seeing missing streets, flooded homes, days stretched long without power, and weeks without water. Everything familiar had been stripped away, and the world around me looked as broken as I felt inside. The weight of losing my father was heavy, but it was my faith, love and community that kept me from being crushed.

In those days after the storm, I learned that resistance wasn’t about denying the grief, but about refusing to let it define me. Inside was a quiet, determined strength — the kind that insists on standing even when everything else has fallen. Grief whispered its demands, but I pushed back. I chose to remember that the storm did not have the final say.

Survival, I discovered, is more than just making it through the day. Sometimes it looks like showing up for others when your own heart is in pieces. Other times it’s allowing yourself to breathe, to rest, to feel every ounce of the ache without shame. Slowly, piece by piece, I began to rebuild. And as I did, I realized I wasn’t only surviving — I was becoming someone new.

The storm revealed more than it destroyed. It stripped away what was temporary and left behind what was lasting: the love of my father, the lessons he gave me, and the strength to carry them forward. Yes, I lost him. Yes, I lost so much in that storm. But I also discovered how deeply love roots itself, and how even in loss, it can never be uprooted.

A year later, I know this much: the storm left its mark, but it did not win. It shook us, but it did not take everything. Love remained. Hope remained. Faith remained. And from what remained, we rose. These truths are proof that even in our hardest moments, we are unshakable — and still thriving.