The first time I visited Nahunta, which is in Brantley County and almost exactly two hours straight down Highway 301, was over 20 years ago. It was the weekend of the 4th of July and I went with a friend to pick up a piece of furniture.
The weather was archetypally hot and humid, stereotypically muggy, the kind of wet heat that only those born and bred in the climate of South Georgia or similar locales have the ability to withstand without an inordinate amount of whining. That is, the air felt like an extra shirt, damp and clinging like Saran Wrap.
The yard of the house where we were to pick up the furniture was full of azaleas grown large and wild and trees of various species festooned in Spanish moss hanging in absolute stillness in the heat.
The house itself could have walked straight out of a Tennessee Williams play, white stucco etched on every side by vines in every shade of green. I half expected to see the front door open and Burl Ives walk out onto the tiled stoop, the stub of a cigar between his fingers.
I don’t remember actually loading the furniture, but I remember my first look at Nahunta. And in the years since that first look – years in which I have attended funerals and wedding showers and birthday parties, ridden a golf cart in the Christmas Parade, celebrated Easter with homemade bonnets, and spent many an hour in deep conversation under those moss-draped trees – I have grown attached.
It is understandable, then, that the past couple of weeks have made me anxious and uncertain and very very sad.
What the meteorologists and firefighters are calling the Highway 82 Fire has grown, as I write this, to over 20,000 acres and is only 6% contained. Over 400 people are working to contain the fire. They will not be able to put it out. Only rain can do that.
For 50 years I was a farmer’s daughter. For 50 years I watched him watch the sky, whisper softly, “we need rain.” But never did we have to watch helplessly as decades of work turned into kindling.
I have been checking on my people in Nahunta and Brantley County. I have been asking what I can do and I keep being told, “Pray for rain.”
On Sunday night I went to a community prayer service at my church to do just that. I cried through the whole thing.
I am not one of those people who thinks that “everything happens for a reason,” that children die because “God needed another angel,” or that floods and tornadoes and wildfires are the manifestation of a vengeful deity.
I am one of those people who thinks that we are put here to help each other, to hold hands as we make our way home, to respond to tragedy and destruction with mercy and compassion. I am one of those people who, in the midst of drought – meteorological or spiritual – will pray for rain.
I don’t know what Nahunta and Brantley County will look like when rain finally comes and the landscape is quiet, but I do know there will be both sorrow over what is lost and gratitude for what remains. And in the duality, there will be hope.
If you are interested in making a tangible contribution to recovery efforts in Brantley County and other effected areas, a recommended provider is MTN2SEA Ministries (https://mtn2sea.com/how-you-can-help?fbclid=IwY2xjawRdk0pleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETF5Q1JkeHh0anB3OUllczZ3c3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHs6gvT8fxVVwdud0mXoL7LKMWwfgRBhRar1CK-7tfeFeq9cT7xORgWHrbjTd_aem_-w7l-zq26kqI9i70zZqYXg).