In June, our community suffered from an unpredictable and disastrous event with the collapse of Champlain Tower in Surfside. The morning of the tragedy, I was in total disbelief. I wanted to help. I’m a psychologist, I thought, can I offer informed support? I reached out to everyone I knew in our psychologist circle and to no avail, I was told that luckily there was a surplus of mental health practitioners on the scene supporting families and first responders. My perfectionism kicked in – “maybe I should get trained on psychological CPR for crisis situations. Maybe, I’m not cut out for this.”
I continued to ask around how I could help, I wasn’t going to stand by.
By chance, speaking with my sister on the third of July she mentioned that I could volunteer at the center preparing meals for the affected families and first responders. I figured out how to go and spent hours there. At first, there was a tinge of “I’m not doing enough. I’m a psychologist. I can’t just be cooking! I need to do more.” But with hairnet and gloves in place, I cooked Beni Hanna style on the sweltering summer day, being a part of a group preparing over 400 meals for lunch.
I returned each time with different friends for several days to cook and prepare food for thousands of daily meals along with chefs and others just like me volunteering their time. The center was open 24/7 and there was always someone there. I managed to juggle volunteering for large chunks of my days and nights with my work with clients. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. I was on a mission to serve. People from all religious backgrounds, different states, and countries came to support Surfside. I reconnected with incredible individuals from my past and met great people whose purpose was to help those suffering. The human spirit is boundless.
On my last day, I brought my children to the center.
The crisis intervention dogs and their owners were taking a break from their work until they were called in to help. My children love dogs and I’m a bit weary. As a clean freak, I love dogs but the slobber cleanup and shedding really irk me.
Anyway, while speaking with the owners about the process of support animals, I was petting one of these darling huge dogs and I started to cry. I hadn’t cried once during this time. Even as I listened to the harrowing stories on the news and knowing individuals who died, I was shaken but I didn’t shed a tear. Though many of my friends stated they couldn’t sleep just thinking of the situation and imagining themselves in the victims’ last moments, that wasn’t happening to me.
It’s a tool we learn as psychologists, compartmentalizing our feelings for the sake of being the buttress for another person in despair. As I was speaking with the team leader of the crisis intervention canine unit HOPE, who is also a firefighter, he mentioned the same thing. How he can leave a terrible scene, shake it off, and have dinner with his wife. Something about being with these calm and lovingly trained support animals broke through and brought me back. All the dog was doing was laying there.
Help. How do we help?
My ego wanted to use my training. My humanity used my home cook culinary skills. The dogs laid on the ground. Our value is not based on what we do but on who we are. We may have an idea of how to help another and sometimes that’s not what the other needs. Had I felt downtrodden for not being able to offer my services, I would have closed myself off to an opportunity to help serve a suffering community. My kids wouldn’t have had the opportunity to connect with such loving animals and incredible human beings who heard about the collapse and packed up their bags the next day to Florida.
Surfside still needs support. Here’s a link to contributing organizations: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wptv.com/news/state/miami-dade/how-to-help-those-impacted-by-surfside-condo-collapse%3f_amp=true