Hoarders: When A Tornado Strikes

It's been over six months since the tornado struck my hometown of Joplin, Missouri, and rarely a day goes by that I don't try to make sense of it. It still seems unbelievable, something you see in the movies and on the news but don't actually live through. As painful of an experience as it was, there has been good that has come out of the tragedy. I've searched for this 'good' so that I can move past the horror and devastation. I'm not at the point yet where the good outweighs the bad, I'm not yet grateful it happened.

In my quest to give the experience purpose, I've actually tried to accept some blame for the force of nature. In the few months leading up to the twister, I had been living on couches in New York City while I searched for a new apartment. Trying to make light of my situation, I kept joking that I was homeless. I was, but not in the sense of the word where I was living on the streets with a box and a blanket. In April, I decided to move into my friend's apartment when she left it in May. Having found my new place, I headed home to Missouri for some stability, comfort and a real bed. Five days before my mom and I were to drive my things back to New York, the tornado hit taking with it my stability, comfort and bed. Homeless now meant something new entirely. God really must have a sense of humor.

My name is Miranda, and I'm a hoarder. I don't deserve to be on a television show...yet, but I could see it for my future. Hoarding is in my genes, passed down from my parents and their parents. When my cousin, Theresa, and I were cleaning what was left of my parent's bathroom, we made a game of finding the oldest and most obscure item. I think I may have won when I found Avon decorative soap from the '70s. Theresa, among others, made the resolution to clean out her closets more regularly. Speaking of cleaning out closets, my parents had been on me for over a year to clean out the walk-in-closet in my bedroom so that my dad could use it to hoard more of his things. It can get nasty when hoarders collide. I kept putting off the closet cleaning because like any good hoarder I just didn't want to face my problem. Shutting the door to it, or never opening the door to it, rather, was much easier. Well, nature and God with his sense of humor took care of that closet, and once again I felt a bit responsible. Clearly full of myself, I have thought that if I had cleaned out that closet and never joked about being homeless maybe the tornado wouldn't have happened because obviously the tornado only occurred to teach me some valuable lessons about what it really means to be homeless and how I should do what my parents ask even if it means encouraging their own hoarding habits.

As bad as my parents' and my hoarding is/was, my dad's parents' ability to hold onto things really put us to shame. Their time on this earth did give them an unfair advantage, but the things they would keep were unbelievable. Though the house had been ripped to shreds, the basement had been mostly spared. My aunt had found a large stack of church bulletins decades old in a cabinet in the basement because you really never know when you will want to look up who sang a solo on that one Sunday back in May of 1991. My cousin Zach had always remembered our grandmother keeping the white Styrofoam meat trays for reasons unknown to any of us. While he was cleaning up the debris of their house, much to his delight, he found a meat tray.

With all this talk of hoarding, I finally can get to a 'good' that has come of the tornado. Heirlooms. So much was lost or destroyed that day. I try not to think about it because just all the pictures that I will never see again leads me to a fit of tears. The sense of loss is always going to be there, but I had not been expecting to find as much as we did. I've seen more pictures of my grandparents, my dad and my uncle in the past six months than I have my whole life. We have realized that my cousin Josh is a dead ringer for his dad when my uncle Tommy was a junior in high school. Uncle Tommy could put on a dress and pass for his mother, Granny Joe. She was quite the looker and poser. So many pictures of her from before she was a mother show us the woman her husband, Papa Leon, fell in love with. Traveling down this memory lane that we had not even realized was in a back closet of their meat-tray-filled house has made the tragedy of the tornado a little bit easier to swallow.

I've always been a fan of vintage. I scour thrift stores, antique malls and vintage boutiques looking for treasures. I had no idea a jackpot of jewelry and other goodies was sitting two doors away my whole life. My Granny was a much larger woman than any of the other ladies in my family so her clothes and extensive collection of panty hose (not kidding!) didn't interest any of us, but her accessories peaked our interest. A month after the tornado, all the Noland women sat around a table in my aunt Debbie's house dividing up the treasure trove of costume jewelry, scarves and gloves. I came away with items that I never knew existed, but they now remind me of a woman so dear to me. The tornado took a great deal from us all that day, but it gave, too.

Champion

I'm one of those people who can eat the same thing for days, weeks, even months and not complain. Ever since I was youngster, I'd get hooked on something, forget any other food existed and emerge sometime later sick of the item and ready for the next obsession. There's been stints of scrambled eggs, tacos, spaghetti, grilled cheese sandwiches, quesadillas, ramen noodles and cheesesticks from Pizza Hut (had those every day for lunch for the last two years of high school). One binge that I've never grown tired of is Wheaties, the Breakfast of Champions. There is just something about those little flakes of wheat that I just cannot get enough of. Maybe it's the promise of becoming a champion or maybe it's how delicious they are with the perfect amount of milk (I know exactly how much milk is needed. If I get too much milk, I add more Wheaties till the milk to cereal ratio is perfect.). My favorite part of a box of Wheaties is the crumbs at the bottom. I tell myself it is going to be a good day when it is the last-of-a-box-of-Wheaties day. My dad has been known to save the crumbs of his boxes for me if he knows I am returning home soon. In my younger and more immature years, I would get a bit upset if he would eat or dare throw out the crumbs. He's been trained now.

All through grade school, it wasn't uncommon for me to go through a box of Wheaties a day. Cereal wasn't just for breakfast, Wheaties were also the lunch and dinner of champions, and maybe even the snack of champions, too. I had grown accustomed to the fact that people were to receive three meals a day, and because I was a stickler for details, I made sure I got my three meals each and every day. I considered it a form of child abuse if my parents tried to pull a fast one on me and let me skip a meal. On occasion, usually on a weekend, we might have a late breakfast which would throw off the whole 3-meal schedule. With bedtime fast approaching, I would recall my missing meal and call my parents out on the injustice. Out would come the iconic orange box, a bowl, spoon and milk. I'd go to sleep with a smile on my face, my belly full of Wheaties knowing the child abusers had once again not won.

Just as my dad has been trained to not eat the last of the box, my mom has also been trained to always have a few boxes waiting for me in the pantry for my visits. During my semesters in London and Greece, she would send care packages with a box or two. It was torture trying to make those boxes last longer than a day - a display of self-control at its finest.

It may not be a common fixation, and I may not be a 'real' champion, but no matter where I am when I pull that box off the shelf with a bowl and spoon in the other hand, I feel at home.

The Porch Swing

This Friday, I will be boarding a plane to return me home for three weeks with my friends and family. I am extremely fortunate to have a job that allows to me to work from anywhere, and I have taken full advantage of it through the years by working from Missouri as much as I can. Two years ago, I was preparing to go home for five weeks. My pregnant sister's due date was around the first of the year, and I wanted to be there for the birth and for the weeks following to help out as much as I could. A few weeks before my departure, I was warned that my grandmother was not doing well. She had spent four years in a nursing home fighting Alzheimer's and diabetes. The Alzheimer's had increasingly taken my once very vocal Granny captive. Each visit to her had left me saddened and in a daze. It was hard to believe the mostly-mute woman in a wheelchair could be the tenacious lady I had grown up half-fearing and half-adoring. It worried me when I was told she had taken a turn for the worse; I asked if I needed to return home sooner. I was reassured that there was time, and there was no need to change my plans yet.

After a few delays, I arrived in Tulsa, Oklahoma, very late on the night of December 19. The hour-and-a-half drive back to Joplin was uneventful until we pulled into the driveway of my parent's house. A car followed us. My mom instantly turned to my dad and started accusing him of violating a traffic law. My dad innocently denied the allegations. We pulled into the garage all a bit frightened of what this person in the driveway could want at 1 o'clock in the morning. He turned out to be an old friend of my parents and the chaplain with the police department. For some reason, they had been unable to get in touch with anyone else in the family, and so this is how I found out my grandmother had died 30 minutes after my plane touched down. Standing on the driveway my bags still in the vehicle, I wailed at the news. I would never get to see her alive again. One day late. My dad seemed a bit relieved, knowing that she was no longer suffering and that the pain of watching her slowly deteriorate was over. We entered the house and began the daunting task of waking the rest of our family members with the news. The following few days were a blur of arrangements, a visitation, a funeral, many family dinners and hoping my sister didn't go into labor at an inopportune time. I decided to speak at the funeral. Four years prior right after Granny had been placed in the nursing home, I had been in a writing class. Our assignment was to describe in great detail a place very dear to us. I had thought long and hard of what one place I could describe and write in length about. With Granny weighing heavily on my heart, I decided upon the one place I had spent hours with her while growing up - her porch swing.


The Porch Swing

My father’s parents have lived two houses away my whole life. This was helpful because we would all look out for each other. Granny would pick my sister and me up from school when my parents could not, my dad would borrow my grandfather’s tools, and my sister and I would let Granny know when the postman had come so she could let her dog out. The thing I most remember and cherish are the times my Granny and I would sit on her porch swing moving back and forth talking and laughing till it was past my bedtime.

My grandparent’s house has a screened in back porch spanning the whole backside of the house. It overlooks their large yard, my grandfather’s garden, and the busy street on the other side of their property. The porch was filled with green ferns and various chairs, lawn and wicker, and the swing is on the end of the porch opposite the door to enter. The swing is large enough for three or four people, and when the weather was pleasant, my grandfather would take his afternoon nap on it. The dark grey-brown wood that makes up the swing looked as old as my grandparents with their matching wrinkles.

Granny would always see me coming, running as fast as my little legs could, up the hill to visit her. She would be at the door waiting to let me in by the time I made it to the three wooden steps that led to the entrance. I would enter the porch and a musty old smell along with the scent remainders of dinner would greet me.

We would walk straight to the swing on the carpeted wood floor. Granny was always on the right and I on the left. The big wooden swing creaked and wobbled as it swung back and forth, and sometimes I wondered if it would crash to the ground. The thin cushion that rested on the bench provided minimal comfort from the thick, rough wood. The bulky chain whined with the pull of our weight. Our chatter was mixed with the sound of bugs, lawn mowers, speeding cars, and police sirens. We watched through the thin mesh the people leaving the restaurants on the busy street, the cars whizzing by, and my grandfather working in his garden. Granny would tell me stories of when she was younger. I would tell her about my day and about my frustrations with school and my sister. She never disagreed with me, and she proved her loyalty by siding with me on everything. I would stay seated in that swing next to my Granny until it was too dark to see anything but the fireflies blinking.

I would rise to leave. Granny would walk me to the door.

“See you later, alligator.” She began the exiting ritual. “After while, crocodile.” I yelled back as I started my descent down the hill.

“Pretty soon, baboon.” I looked back waving my hand above my head. The swing, now empty, was still moving as if we were still there.

Once I made it to my house, I flashed the backyard light as if I was sending Morse code for “I made it safely home.”

I got older and busier, and the alligators, crocodiles, and baboons saw less and less of one another. Granny’s health slowly deteriorated with every passing season. When she felt up to it, she would sit on the porch swing alone watching the world pass her by. Four years ago, she became too ill for my grandfather to continue to take care of her. She moved to a new home without a porch swing. Our times together were no longer the same. Her memory and sight were gone. She would stare at me blankly. I would see what she used to be, but she could no longer see what I had become.

Her porch swing sits empty, slowly swaying in the wind, waiting for her return. I see the swing, and it reminds me of all the times the two of us spent building a friendship. I recall very few specific conversations, but I cannot forget the feeling I always left with, one of contentment and love.

See you later, alligator.


My voice quivered with emotion while speaking this homage to my Granny and our relationship. All the preparation in the world couldn't prepare me for the reality of saying a last goodbye to my grandmother in front of family, friends and many strangers. I was honored to be able to expose the softer side of the blunt and abrasive woman most everyone else knew.

I never took a photo of that porch swing. Just as I had figured I would have time to see her one last time, I also figured there would be time to capture the sentimental slabs of wood. Just as no one could have predicted she would leave us before I could make it home, no one could have predicted a tornado would destroy my grandparent's house eighteen months after her death. She and that swing live in my memories now, and I know those conversations on that porch have shaped me into the tenacious lady I am today. Thank you, Granny. Miss you.