June 07, 2013

1060. Thought i was recycling

Trash by the road:
many wet cardboard boxes, many household plastic containers, milk cartons, laundry bottles, fruit juices.
Then photographs and two shiny pennies, two keys, colored pencils, music that attaches to a marching band instrument.

This was not trash by the road.
This was a tragedy shaped like a family that had not taken its valuables with them.
Or like a family whose house had betrayed their trusting it to hold their valuables.


Recycled as much as had room in my two containers to recycle, but could not ignore the depth of loss left in the yard.
Maggots were in the first handful lifted.
Was wearing gloves but had not been that close to maggots before.
The dumpster was empty.
Did not have trash bags, and impulse was to throw trash like this into the dumpster.
Wonder now if was not creating a smaller, worse environment for the next person to remove.


Rotten bananas did not resemble food on the grass.
Bags, seen as containing recycled garbage, were actually filled with the contents of a refrigerator: removed pickles, salad dressings, Baconettes, toppings that dress a healthy meal.
Could not consider each piece and threw the bags into the dumpster, feeling sadness and tears and, can't call it anger, but perhaps uncertainty: How does this happen?


There was Christmas garland and a broken Christmas toy-body—once a happy decoration for a porch.
Had trouble throwing the legs of it into the dumpster, because they were the approximate size of child legs, though nothing at all like real child legs.


Do not know what happened to this family, but in some way they either betrayed themselves or were themselves betrayed.
The house stood neat and quiet, and the more tried to remove wet boxes and empty plastic containers, the further realized this job was not "neighborly recycling" in hand.
Could not finish the work.


Felt I'd stumbled upon an open grave of people not buried.
There was a live mouse under one of the boxes, and my husband was waiting for me to pick him up at Home Depot.
My husband is not a mouse, but I do not think he would have looked twice at the mess in the yard.
Still wonder why I did.


Two items removed to
protect the family, to mail to
their places of business. But know could
not have seen all that needed or wanted
protecting. The family was not there. Some children
from the neighborhood came around, smiling and interested, riding their bikes.
Maybe they knew about this mess.

Know it is God Who protects us, them, the family strewn, but hope
time was a part of His kind providence and not an intrusion into a place
did not belong, either as neighbor or seer. Never expected, when decided to recycle what could, to discover a family thrown out into the weather to saturate in maggots, rain, and mice. What

do we do when this happens to people? Thankfully,

Jay finished his business at Home Depot and was able to ride with me to the recycling spot up Rutherford.
We recycled the plastics, some of them from our own house, and wet, flat cardboard and paper.

That was all I could do.

Is there more to be done?
It seems like there is, but by whom, and how?

Posted by nancy at June 7, 2013 01:08 PM
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