Ali Goldsmith’s home on Beach Drive in Merrick was ravaged by Hurricane Sandy.
She lives with her husband, mother, three children and bulldog, and the family was forced to relocate due to extreme flooding that rendered the home uninhabitable.
Initially, their friends, Bari and Jory Cener, took the family in, but they have since gone upstate to stay with family. On the drive up, Goldsmith decided to write a poem about her experience during Hurricane Sandy. It’s printed below.
To My Friends Bari & Jory Cener, this is for you.
Cold
Dark, eerie
It smells rotten
The sound of the occasional siren or the vibration of the outside generator.
Limbs are everywhere
Trunks uprooted
People look desperate, hungry- tired.
Homes once were lined with pumpkins and autumn decor now surrounded by garbage.
Lines for fuel
Lines for coffee
Lines for water
Police for crowd control
Traffic lights down
Did you hear
Did you see
Did you read what they wrote
Social Media
Cell phones charging
A Hot shower at a friends?
Plans Changed
Events canceled
No school
No marathon
No Halloween
Did you stay did you go?
Where to go?
What is left?
The NICU nurses
The firefighters
The Rescue Workers
It could have been worse? Breezy Point, the two little boys? Long Beach, Jersey Shore.
The election
The market
The perfect storm an oxymoron Homes lost people dead towns annihilated
Friends huddled together pooling resources - sharing information.
Children playing for hours on end all together. Sleeping bags and blankets line living rooms. Crayons on kitchen tables. Friends looking out for other friends kids while they clean or make arrangements. Sleepovers. Wine. Candles. Some power. Dinner with lots more people. Lots more kids. Gratitude for those that shared their warm homes. Opened their kitchens and bathrooms and their chargers...
Life's not easy here-devastating.
Hope glimmers thru the eyes of the children as they play with one another passing the time unfazed by missing Halloween unfazed by the lack of gas unfazed by the market and politics.
Hurricane sandy the storm that destroyed so much around us but rekindled the soul with the spirit of friendship and unselfishness - loyalty. Putting things aside and moving forward. Restoring faith in people and their strength and fortitude.
Hurricane Sandy you served no good. You hurt us and you stole our beaches and infrastructure. In some cases our homes and at your worst moments you took our people, children. We will always remember you as cruel storm for as much as you took we survived together.
What did you think of the poem? Tell us in the comments below.
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Merokean Shares Poem After Home Ravaged by Sandy
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Bobby Stokel May 21, 2013 at 11:17 am
Thank you to everyone so far in showing your support. We still need more signatures so please help…Read More :-)
Tammy Lovinlife Snowden May 21, 2013 at 09:47 pm
Thank you so much for posting this blog. This happened to be my husbands cousin whom was missing…Read More since Sunday. God is amazing how I was led to this blog, again I thank you, and to let you know you helped someone with this information.
Michael Ganci (Editor) May 20, 2013 at 12:37 am
We just posted. I was at the scene. Hope this helps! MG…Read More http://merrick.patch.com/groups/breaking-news/p/woman-struck-by-train-at-merrick-lirr-station
Zach T May 17, 2013 at 07:20 pm
The School board is a bunch of morons if they want to remove this designation! There were 0 problems…Read More like this when Malucci was in office, this new superintendent is a waste of space, money, and cares more about his own paycheck then our kids! Between school security, and now this, I motion that we get rid of that skell!
Dr. Kim Lurie May 16, 2013 at 12:54 pm
Bless you, Anthony. And though I know ultimately the "Judge" will have to be held…Read More accountable by a higher authority...those of us who do this work, have not forgotten nor will we allow the system to forget what her role in this travesity was.
Anthony Merlo May 16, 2013 at 10:24 am
Thank you for this wonderful article on a good man pushed to the brink. I appriciate the fact this…Read More came form the heart and did not hold back. As Sacristan at Cure of Ars, I had the pleasure of working with Dr. Rich (as I called him) for some time. He was a man of faith and a pleasure to see. Always with a smile and kind word, you would never know what was going on the way he acted. This was a wonderful and insightful article. It is heartbreaking to think that where there was once love between 2 people, things got to the point where one persons life was destroyed by those who could and did for no apparent reason other than having the ability to do so. God will have mercy on Dr. Rich and the ex-wife and "Judge" should pray for the same given their actions.