Crabbing, Culling, Repeat
Take a look at my Investigative Journalism piece above about a family of crabbers from Southern Maryland. This piece was chosen as the winner of the 2016-2017 Whitten Maher Memorial Scholarship for Writing and Design. Click here if you would like to read Crabbing, Culling, Repeat.
Isabel's Aftermath
September, 2003
It was one year and a month after my grandfather, Pops, passed away, almost to the day. My parents, three siblings, and I made the familiar drive down the country roads to Piney Point, a small town on the Potomac River in Southern Maryland. This drive was different, though. We didn’t open the windows when we turned onto our street, competing to see who saw the water first. We didn’t have any country music playing. We didn’t have any music. We sat in a somber silence as we looked around our quiet road. Some houses were still abandoned. Some neighbors were already outside cleaning up. Their usual friendly waves now slow, exhausted.
There was an almost-silent gasp when we saw our once bright, happy, yellow cottage. The screened-in front porch caved in. The windows torn apart or missing completely. The remaining short cinderblock wall that lined the front lawn crumbled in ruins. Piles of sand stacked up in dunes across the road and in our yard. Our golf cart, the Popsmobile, sunk in the garage, weighed down by sand and water. Its days of driving Pops and his air tank up and down the street were officially over.
We joined my uncle and aunt’s cars parked in the usual grass row on the side of the drive. My grandma, Ems, stood in the driveway in shock, her hand covering her mouth. My mom joined her, wrapping her in a hug. My dad quickly swooped in to distract us, hustling us to the back of the car. He suited us up in our rain boots and jackets, with bathing suits hidden underneath. I didn’t understand why we would even have to put on boots. Shoes weren’t required at Piney unless we were going to church, and it wasn’t even Sunday.
Dad sent us on the most important mission of all. We ran up and down the beach and through backyards searching for all of our beach toys that got washed away. The shed was pushed back behind and around the other side of the house, so we knew we had a big area to cover. The backyard was still partially flooded. Grass stuck out like islands. My cousins, siblings, and I made up a story in this newfound world. We chased all the evil snakes back to the creek where they belonged.
After hours of exploring, hopping in puddles, and searching for toys, we made our way back to the house. The adults were still cleaning, but we were able to walk inside part of the house if we kept our boots on. A dark line stretched across the walls. We measured ourselves next to it. The line came up past my hip.
I continued in the backroom, the kids’ room. I remembered the commotion in the bathroom one night. I had a clear view from my bed. Pops snuck in the bathroom, thinking he was sick. I peeked out from beneath my covers as the first responders rushed in. They threw around words I didn’t understand: “heart attack,” “needs oxygen.” I pretended to sleep as my mom quietly shut our door.
There were lots of secrets that day. The grown-ups would stop talking when any of us walked up. They weren’t good at whispering. I walked in as I heard my uncle ask, “Is this even worth saving?”
I cried, afraid we’d lose our beach house. I cried because this is the place all of our cousins came and if it was gone, we wouldn’t see them anymore. Ems cried because Pops made all the additions to the cottage and didn’t want to lose it, too.
So began the rebuilding process. The moms began sorting through everything on the ground floor. They handpicked what they could salvage and threw out what was too damaged. The dads and kids worked outside. We made the most of cleaning up our beach and tried to ignore the almost destroyed, but still standing, summer house.
Thirteen years after Pops’s passing, almost to the day, we finally replaced the kitchen floor that was slowly sinking farther into the ground due to the water damage. The wooden rocking chairs were repainted. The walls, like our hearts, are still marked by the past. But our house and family still stand.
Croagh Patrick Pilgrimage
I hopped off the bus, staring down my next challenge. The sky was partly sunny and it was fairly warm out, which was unusually nice weather for Ireland. Coming to this country was one point checked off my bucket list. This view showed the last one on my Ireland bucket list. Something that I promised myself I would do before I even knew I was going to study abroad. I was going to make my pilgrimage up Croagh Patrick barefoot.
Growing up in Catholic schools, I learned at an early age the story of St. Patrick. He taught the Irish people about the Holy Trinity through the use of the three-leaf clover. Then, he cast out all the snakes in Ireland by leading them to the top of the mountain and sending them over the edge. This mountain became known as Croagh Patrick in his honor. People paid tribute to his memory and for their sins by climbing the mountain barefoot. Something I knew I had to accomplish.
I couldn’t have guessed this level of difficulty even as I was sitting at the edge of the path taking off my sneakers. The path to the foot of the mountain was mostly pavement. Knowing Ireland, I expected a green mountain all the way up, maybe steep in some parts, but that would be it. What I wasn’t expecting was the gravel rocks for the first half of the mountain.
The green landscape was one of the draws to the giant island. I had always known I wanted to go to Ireland. It was the first place I dreamed of traveling. The stories I heard of this magical place from school and my family fed my urges. It has been decades since my family first came to America from Ireland, but our roots still show in my siblings’ red hair, and easily sunburnt skin. I wondered if any of my ancestors walked this same mountain years before me.
I tried to walk on patches of grass when I could find it. Even the mud was better than the pointy Legos under my feet. It was a slow process. The second half of the mountain traded in the gravel for slightly larger, but landslide-prone, rocks. My worry wasn’t what the bottom of my feet were feeling; they weren’t feeling anything anymore. Now the worry was to climb in the thinning air on all fours, scaling the side of the almost vertical mountain. I thought my biggest physical test was gone, little did I know it was just beginning. For every two steps, we slide meters. Every time we let the people coming down pass, we descended with them. A cloud swallowed us whole. Nothing could be seen that wasn’t within ten feet of me. All around me was rocks and a few other climbers, who disappeared and reappeared with every gust of wind. I kept going, refusing to give up as I pulled my already bleeding foot from another runaway rock.
The words of a descending hiker rang in my ears. “I can’t imagine what your sins are if this is your penance.”
I began to wonder the same thing.
Pulling myself over the edge, dangling my very exhausted feet, I could not have been more proud. The sky opened up and I could almost hear the angels singing their praises. My trophy came trotting over in the form of an Irish sheep dog. He promptly sat on my lap, licked my face, and soaked up my tears of joy.