What Was Left in the Ashes

A Profound Moment of Destruction, Connection & Healing

One of the most defining moments of my life and all of my careers was when I was a reporter for a newspaper in New York City, covering Superstorm Sandy.

After a week of floods clearing and finally being able to fill my car with gas, colleagues and I went down to Breezy Point where the community had experienced devastating damage.

Nearly the entire neighborhood was literally still underwater, and an entire section of it had burned to the ground. Homes incinerated.

We waded through the floods and passed people going through the pieces that they had left until we made it to that burn site.

This was the part about journalism that always made me uncomfortable… we had to approach people in some of their most painful moments, and pose questions that asked them to go deeper into that pain.

But on this day, I learned how to trust myself and my intentions. I never wanted to just get the story, I wanted to connect with people and turn struggle into art. I wanted to put words to feelings that seemed so insurmountable. I wanted them to feel respected and safe and seen. And I knew this about myself.

Journalists get a bad rap for exploiting people for headlines, and while I think the lines do get blurry, and have undoubtedly blurred more since 2012, the writers I have personally encountered have shared the aforementioned trait with me.

So it was this knowing that guided me towards a man with a shovel, digging through the remains of his home.

He shared with us that he was searching for his wife’s wedding ring that they left behind the night of the storm and the fire. What I watched him stumble upon instead was a stack of photos — the only thing still in tact in his fully burned down home.

They had melted a little bit, but there was one photo face down against another. He peeled the photos apart, looked at what was there and immediately broke down crying. Once he settled a little, he showed me the photo.