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The smell of smoke clings furiously to my nostril hairs. It’s on our shirts, our skin– even now, as we stand at the doorway of the tiny pale blue house, it slithers its way into our lungs. The smoke is coming from a fire on the east side of the island, from an oil refinery whose black tar blood oozed out twenty-two days before when Grand Bahama was hit by the worst natural disaster in its history. I stand by the door frame and windows, which have been left open to allow the refreshing, charred air to drift into the hot, A/C-less house. I’ve spent the past two days sorting through boxes and supplies in an old YMCA gym-turned-relief-aid-warehouse, preparing the meal supply kits I am now delivering to homes in the poorest neighborhood on the island. My guide, Millie, an exuberant and humble woman whose large smile is outmatched only by her nurturing heart, is standing across from me with now melancholic eyes, next to an elderly woman introduced as Ms. Annie, who is sitting on an old brown armchair, staring forlornly out the window. “I'm waiting”, she announces matter-of-factly. “I know I’m gonna see them walk down that road any day now.” There is a defeated dread to her voice– she wants to believe her own words. "Gone, all of them”, Ms. Annie’s cousin, who's standing between Millie and myself, states. “Her daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter, all swallowed by the ocean when the waves came in, fast.” Dorian was an impressive beast, a formidable monster who swallowed and spit out entire islands and their inhabitants. She took her time as she made her way through the Caribbean, waltzing from landmass to landmass, whirling her 185 MPH winds. She did not discriminate, took rich and poor, big and small, and made even the most steadfast nonbelievers shake at the might of the Almighty. “I told them to stay here with me, but they said things would be safer on the east.” The east side of the island was hit the worst, experiencing the full, unapologetic force of Category 5 winds and 23 foot-tall storm surge. “Everyone thought our side would be hit hard again like the last storm, but we weren’t, we were saved”. Her words hang in an air that’s suddenly as heavy as her regret. “I shouldna let them go…” While official reports estimated that 70 died and nearly 300 were lost at sea, we all knew it was more than that. Her family was one of many never to be recovered, never counted. But I won't tell her that. No, instead, I stand, fidgeting with the hem of my sweaty t-shirt and holding a bag I pray still holds hope and comfort. In two days, I will be on a boat heading back to the luxuries and familiarities of my every day, riding on the same waves that dragged out Ms. Annie’s family and countless more bodies to their cerulean resting place, now mixed with thick oil the color of raven-feathers. I will stare out the ship’s window and onto the island, will notice the snapped palm trees and vegetation, which resemble dandelion stems from my childhood, naked after I blew out their dust bunny petals. I will look at the sky, now as blood-orange as the fires that continue to rage on in the east, and I will realize that it is the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. But right now, at this moment, I am standing in Ms. Annie’s hot living room. Her electricity is down and our bodies reek of burning, even though we don’t seem to mind the smell anymore. I hand her a grocery bag filled with food and hygienic products, but what I actually want to give her is solace. To hold her round face and say that her family is as limitless as the Atlantic, that they will one day meet again. More than that, I want to shout 'Look!' and point to her family walking down the road. “Thank you, baby”, she grins. "God bless”, I say, the words already floating off to sea.