Memorial Drive, Joplin MO

It was a sad road that I traveled yesterday. One of destruction, of loss, death, depression, and heartbreak in Joplin, Missouri. From Schifferdecker Avenue to 32^nd Street to 20^th Street, across Main Street and Range Line Road and Interstate 44, each street felt like a funeral procession. The May 22 tornado had traveled these same roads—an unlicensed, reckless and deadly driver that left miles of emptiness and pain behind.

The twig-like trees stood out among the expanse of twisted metal and splintered wood that covered miles of land. They were stripped of their leaves, with trunks pock-marked where flying objects had pummeled them on their way by. But little green leaves sprouted in irregular clusters as they fought to regain their composure—a small sign of renewal in a ravaged land. Many trees had trapped the twisted metal of someone’s home. They had captured someone’s quilts and blankets and held their shredded fibers like massive spiderwebs among their branches.

The neighborhoods were eerily quiet. There were no children squealing playfully in their backyards. No one was cutting their grass or trimming flowers to take into the house. No joggers. No walkers. No postal carrier walking from home to home. I wondered where they had all gone. Where they were now. What road had they taken?  Would they come back or could they never return?

As I passed each forgotten toy or recognizable household item, I kept thinking, “This is someone’s shoe, someone’s jacket, someone’s toy.”

While walking the sidewalks of a torn apartment complex, I saw a penny on the sidewalk—heads up. I left it- another small piece of hope for someone. On our journey weaving back through the devastated route, I saw other signs of hope on their road to recovery— on the sign of Joplin High School, where the “J” and “lin” were missing, they had fashioned an “H” and “O” out of duct tape to create “Hope High School.” Spray-painted messages of “We’re ok” and “God Bless Joplin,” with the ever-cheerful Smiley Face accompanying them, brought a brief smile. Work crews who graciously allowed us to drive carefully through, and the smell of fresh lumber and the sound of hammers birthing new homes for someone were hopeful sights and sounds.

For me, these sights from the road were new yesterday morning and I was overcome with that initial shock and heartbreak that comes with being handed a letter of loss. But for others who had lived through it and were beginning to rebuild, the road may appear to them as one of Hope and reconstruction. Where my wheels turned solemnly and slowly, theirs are starting to turn with purpose and strength.