My wife is an amazing woman. She’s funny, intelligent and loving. She also tolerates my inability to stack a dishwasher or close a cabinet door with great tolerance. It isn’t easy to find the right gift for her. What to buy the woman with everything is not as important as what to give the woman who’s perfectly happy to have a book from the library and a cup of tea. Birthdays and holidays are a time of dread and the wish that she was less resistant to capitalism’s siren song.
Five years ago, as a major milestone was approaching, I got it right: a week in a tropical paradise, laying on the beach, enjoying our three-year-old, and fulfilling a lifelong dream to snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef. The perfect present for the ideal holiday.
Arriving at a glorious blue sky, a sheet of information titled “Explanation of Situation Regarding Potential Cyclone” was revealed.
This was alarming. The handout said that the island was built to withstand cyclones, but it could still miss us. We never thought about leaving; our biggest concern was that the reef trip might be canceled. We did, however, stock up on bottled water, canned food, and other supplies, as we were surprised to see that nobody else had done so. We said that we had overreacted.
Travel to and from the island was stopped the next day. We saw a preview of the pandemic pasta crisis as we trundled past the supermarket on our golf cart. Debbie (we now knew the name of the cyclone) was not due to arrive for another two days. So we went to visit the koalas, swim in the pool, and go to the beach. The majority of people did the same thing. There was no panic if the mood wasn’t relaxed. A toddler splashed in puddles of warm water on the lawn in front of our building.
We went to the highest point of the island the afternoon before the storm to see the darkness gathering in the east. The wind was as strong as I had ever felt. We went inside, unsure of what would happen in the next 24 hrs.
The apartment building appeared to be designed for a nuclear explosion, with slabs of thick glass and concrete. But the noise was still shocking when it hit full force at midnight. It is unpleasantly alive to feel a cyclone, which is loud in every frequency at the same time. It’s easy to think of nature as a malicious force when it is in the middle of a cyclone. A cyclone makes you feel like it wants to harm you. The next day, we watched nervously as things, some of them quite large, flew past our window. Thankfully, our son was not affected by the whole thing. He played and napped as if the day was any other, even though the wind began to tear apart the window. Fortunately, it stopped after a while, and the outside stayed out.
We didn’t realize how fortunate we were until we saw the shattered landscape. The island was not a death trap, but other buildings were in a much worse state than ours. One family that we spoke to had the front door ripped off, and three terrified children spent 24 hours locked in a bathroom. One apartment building had a piece of the roof that was peeled away like a plaster.
The next few days were spent avoiding the cleanup crews, searching for phone reception, and inspecting the coral pieces washed up along the beach. This was the closest we’d come to the reef. Many people were shocked, some were angry, and all wanted to get home. The resort management shut down the local bottle shop. It was probably the right decision, but the atmosphere didn’t improve.
We spent six days in the airport wondering if and where we would be able to board an evacuation flight. The holiday wasn’t great, but the answer to a perennial question was answered. What do you give the woman with everything? A cyclone.