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    To the Eye of the Storm and Back
    To the Eye of the Storm and Back
    To the Eye of the Storm and Back
    Ebook122 pages1 hour

    To the Eye of the Storm and Back

    By M. Kelley

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    About this ebook

    “I had always wanted an adventure, but I guess I should have been more specific about what I wanted.”

    With these seemingly innocuous words, the tale of the Kelley family begins. Wanting to be beholden to no one's dreams but their own, they left behind their Utah home and set out for Puerto Rico. They acted with intention, redirecting their lives to match their true purpose. Their arrival in Puerto Rico coincided with Hurricane Irma, followed closely by Hurricane Maria. They found themselves huddled together in the dark, with their house centered in the eye of the storm. They watched as the island they loved was demolished by the force of the hurricane winds, and then left to languish without electricity, water, or any relief for weeks. This is a gripping memoir of wanderlust, discovery, catastrophe, family, and the power of love and laughter to make it through the storm.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherM. Kelley
    Release dateJan 13, 2018
    ISBN9781386917632
    To the Eye of the Storm and Back

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      Book preview

      To the Eye of the Storm and Back - M. Kelley

      Adventure

      Chapter One

      I

      had always wanted to have an adventure, but I guess I should have been more specific about what I wanted. I could say a lot of things about the past year of my life, but I could never say that it wasn't an adventure. My husband and I moved our family three-thousand miles away to an island that we'd only been to once. We relocated to Puerto Rico, speaking little Spanish, but having a great thirst for adventure and new experiences. Unfortunately, our timing was a bit off. We moved to Puerto Rico in August of 2017. Some of you may already know where this is going, but I won't get ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning of our chaotic misadventure.

      It started in April of 2017, when I got the itch for adventure, and so I approached my husband with the idea of taking a family vacation. I'd always loved traveling and had never managed to satisfy my unwavering wanderlust. It's probably because I moved around so much when I was kid. I spent a few years living in Great Britain. That's why my original idea was for us to take a family vacation to Europe.

      We'd always talked about taking a family vacation to someplace exciting, but it hadn't ever really worked out. We'd taken trips to neighboring states a couple of times, and we always managed to squeeze in a few fun activities, but all of those trips had been work related, or tied to family obligations. They were never something that we'd done just for fun and just for us. This vacation would be different. It would be planned and it wouldn't be for work or any other purpose. It would be only for our own joy. We were ready to do something for ourselves; something that would bring our family closer together, as we experienced a new culture together.

      This was an idea that we'd been tossing around for a while, but in April the idea struck me with renewed strength. We had a long weekend coming up. We'd been talking about it for so long. What was stopping us from just taking that dream vacation right now? What was really standing in our way?

      I talked it over with my husband, and we realized that there really wasn't anything stopping us. We began taking the idea more and more seriously, as the long weekend approached. We had a few more long discussions, and eventually our talk steered away from Europe. We started to look at the U.S. island territory of Puerto Rico. It would be a place that none of us had ever been to, and it would be an opportunity to learn some Spanish, see the rain forest, and all around just immerse ourselves in a culture that we were completely unfamiliar with.

      So, we made the leap and bought our tickets. I looked forward to that long weekend the more that I'd looked forward to something in a very long time. I did copious amounts of research, planning the places that we would see and choosing the hotel that we would stay at.

      My husband, Matt, was just as excited. He hadn't done as much traveling in his life as I had, but he still had that spirit of wanderlust and adventure. My two youngest kids couldn't contain their exhilaration. They had a countdown going and told everyone they spoke to about their big family vacation to Puerto Rico that was coming up. Matt and I have four kids altogether, but the two oldest were already adults. They remained close with us, of course. I like to think that we are a close-knit little family. But both older boys had school obligations that they couldn’t shirk. So, Bowen, our oldest, and Shawn, our second oldest, didn't join us for this tropical excursion.  To be honest, I think Bowen was looking forward to having a bachelor weekend, without parents and younger siblings around.  But our two youngest, Michael and Aislinn, couldn't wait to see what the island of Puerto Rico was all about.

      We arrived in Old San Juan after a long overnight trip with three connecting flights. Altogether, it was over twelve hours of traveling, taking into account the drive to the airport and the two hours of waiting. Michael and Aislinn were bored at several points, but I made sure to pack them their laptops and a couple of books and other things to entertain them. Getting through security didn't take nearly as long as we'd expected, so we hung out in the terminal, waiting for our flight. This was Aislinn’s first time on a plane, but luckily the flight was uneventful and we mostly spent it just talking excitedly about everything that we were going to do and see.

      Finally after a long morning into early afternoon spent in the air, the captain announced that we were coming up to our destination of Luis Munoz Marin International Airport. We looked out the windows of the plane, as we began our descent. We could see the clear blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean and the small island that was the city of San Juan, coming clearer and clearer into view, as the plane came lower in the sky. The waves crashed against the shoreline of the small island city, located just off the eastern edge of Puerto Rico. I could see the white peaks of the cresting waves as they rolled upon each other and struck the edges of the sand.

      Old San Juan is the historic part of San Juan (as the name so aptly betrays). It started as a Spanish colony in the 1500s, and this colonial section of the city was surrounded by a great wall. To enter into the city, one had to pass through this wall. I had seen pictures online of the red square-arched entrance to the ancient city, but I couldn't wait to see it in person.

      Aislinn and Michael had been starting to get pretty restless for the past hour or so, but now that the gorgeous, ancient city was in full view through the aircraft's windows, they were buoyant and energetic.

      Oh man! Aislinn shouted, practically climbing over her father to get a better view of the island. Look! There it is! Are we gonna get to go to the beach and go swimming? Are we gonna get to eat Puerto Rican food?

      My husband laughed.

      We'll do all of that, he said, giving Aislinn a brisk pat on the head.

      What kind of food will we eat? Michael asked.  As a picky eater and growing boy of twelve, food was a special concern of his.

      He was practically jumping up out of his seat.

      Sit still, I reminded him. The plane is landing. You need to stay still and make sure your seat-belt is tight. Aislinn, you too.

      The kids settled down, and to my relief, stopped straining against their seat-belts to look out the windows. Of course, I was just as excited as them, but I'm a mom first and an adventurer second. Even though it was probably fine, I always need to do whatever I can to keep them safe.

      Finally, the plane landed and we were officially in Puerto Rico. It seemed to take forever to get out of that airport. I was just so eager for our dream vacation to get started, but that's just not how life works, even when one is on a dream vacation. We had to wait for everyone in front of us to get their bags and exit the plane, which always takes ages longer than it should. We waited our turn, as the passengers ahead of us fumbled with taking their luggage down out of the overhead bins, and the line crawled on up towards the front of the plane.

      After probably about fifteen or twenty minutes, we were off the plane. We had our carry-on bags, but still had two larger suitcases that we needed to get from baggage claim. We found our plane's baggage carousel and stood waiting for the teal and black suitcases we'd brought.

      I noticed that I had some voicemails once I turned my phone back on after exiting the plane.  Thinking it might be work, I took a few minutes to listen in and my heart immediately sank.  There had been a mix-up in our hotel reservations and our room at the resort was not available.  After some tense moments on the phone with customer support, with an anxious family watching on, we had confirmed rooms at a different hotel.  This wasn’t how I had envisioned the first hour of our vacation.  At that point it felt like years that we stood watching the circular conveyor belt and waiting for our bags to materialize in front of us. Through the airport's window's I could see the sunny, bright blue sky of San Juan, and all that I wanted to do was get out of that airport and start exploring.

      Once we had our bags, we hurried outside and hailed a cab to bring us to our hotel. My husband attempted to

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