A Natural Disaster Changes Everything

This post was originally posted on Facebook as events unfolded.

April 2, 2025 - The Hotel

Everyone is asleep but me. I woke up after a few hours of sleep. I don’t remember what I dreamed, but I was instantly awake.

I disassociated all day Tuesday. Nothing in the world felt real. I was unplugged from my surroundings, operating on autopilot.

All day, I watched and listened to fellow author and best friend, Kody Boye, (our long-time roommate), prepare for his trip back to Idaho. Car rental reservation, trip route planned, plane ticket for my husband to return booked…it was surreal.

Last Thursday night, he helped me do the dishes and chatted while I made ravioli, the last meal I would cook in the house. He noticed several cars speeding down the road and wondered aloud where they were going. I teased him about being paranoid about a tornado watch earlier.

Meanwhile, my husband checked the rising water levels outside. At one point, the rain slowed and stopped. We thought the worst might be over, and then the rain started again.

I ate a bowl of ravioli at my desk, then started work on an article for the day job. I was of the mindset that I wasn’t going to worry until an evacuation order screamed out of our phones. We were already getting severe weather warnings.

Then my husband exclaimed, “Rhia, the water is coming in!”

I turned around to see water seeping out of the walls and spreading across the floor. We started grabbing cats and personal items as our lives disintegrated.

Now I am sitting on the floor of a hotel room paid by GoFundMe donations after crying for half an hour in the bathroom.

The life and family we had constructed are gone.

On one hand, I am very happy that Kody is leaving with a college degree, a good job, a writing career, and a large support system. I have watched him grow from a terrified 18-year-old (who looked twelve) to a young man who has overcome disabilities and traumas to achieve so much. I know he is just at the start of another leg of his journey.

Corey and I had hoped he would leave to be with a partner, or for a job, or a new place of his own. Not because of tragedy.

Part of my mourning is for all the dreams wrapped in our fixer-upper that had far more issues than we realized. Kody and I had made plans for decorating after renovations that will never happen. That his room, his safe haven, took the brunt of a lot of damage breaks my heart.

I know we will continue to chat daily and make terrible jokes, but our time as roomies is over. He has been my gay best friend, conspirator, and family for over a decade. We have had ups and downs. We have helped each other through hard times. We have our own language. I always knew he would leave, but not like this. Abruptly, with really no choice.

That was driven home to me that even while I searched for a new place to live, I couldn’t find a place that would fit all of us.

My husband and Kody leave in the morning. I will continue the apartment search alone until Corey gets back. It feels so wrong to look at places where Kody won’t have a room.

The parting of ways was always going to happen, but I thought there would be time to prepare, to celebrate, to reminisce.

We had one last dinner together, me, Corey, Kody, and my mom. We chatted, laughed, and enjoyed the moment. Yet in my head, I knew this was the end of a significant era in my life.

The flood has destroyed not only our home, but our little family unit. It has forced immense change and uncertainty into our lives.

I can’t go home. I can’t fix this moment. The only choice is forward, not with four, but three.