Even in despair, family feels blessed
Lifted up and brought down: A day in the life in Houston
After little slumber, Helen Benjamin, 78, rose from bed at 7 a. m. in pink pajamas and a ruffled purple sleeping cap and began preparations for church as she would any other Sunday. But this day was different. Benjamin didn’t wake up in her home of more than five decades in the city’s Kashmere Gardens neighborhood. She woke up 15miles across town in a cramped hotel room with two double beds — her youngest daughter, Kim Malbroue, 46, and 10- year- old grandchild, Imana, in the bed next to her.
Benjamin and her family are among tens of thousands of Houstonians displaced from their homes by Hurricane Harvey, which tore through southeastern Texas one week earlier, killing at least four dozen people, filling more than 50,000 homes with water and testing
the endurance of the nation’s fourthlargest city.
“I didn’t sleep hardly at all,” she said, now dressed in blue skirt and blazer with a silver brooch on her lapel and navy blue hat atop her neat- kept silver hair. “We’ve been pulling wet stuff out of the house all night. My daughter was crying because her back hurt.
“But we are blessed. A lot of people are worse off.”
Five other members of her displaced family stirred in two nearby rooms at the Hilton west of downtown, preparing for what they knew would be a hectic and emotional day ahead.
“From sunup to sundown, we’re working, throwing out stuff,” said Benjamin’s other daughter, Ann Neal, 59. Neal, whose home is flooded, is staying in a hotel room with Benjamin’s niece Karen Lacy and her husband, Jerry Lacy, who also live in Kashmere Gardens. “There’s little time for sleep.”
Several floors up, Benjamin’s 88year- old brother- in- law, Thomas Benjamin, and his 87- year- old wife, Dorris Benjamin, rest. The couple also live in Kashmere Gardens, and the past seven days, the family says, have been especially trying on the pair; she is in a wheelchair and on dialysis.
“Lots to do today,” Benjamin says as she approaches the hotel’s large glass front doors. “But in all that’s going on, the first stop belongs to God.”
TAKING REFUGE IN FAITH
Benjamin is the matriarch of the family. Her husband, J. Edward Benjamin, died in the early ’ 90s, leaving behind two daughters; a son, Graylon Benjamin, 52; and the late Larry Benjamin, 50. She has a welcoming, impressive energy.
Members at the Fifth- Ward Church of Christ, where she makes her first stop and has been a member for nearly six decades, describe her as not only a respected member of the community but a selfless and caring person.
“The most giving, angelic, honest, pure Christian lady,” says Hugh Larkin, a pharmacist and fellow member at the northeast Houston church with a 2,000- member congregation. “She and her family, like many others here, are going through so much.”
As she sits three rows from the back of the sanctuary, Benjamin closes her eyes for amoment.
“You got that water in your house right now, smile and, you know what, say, ‘ I’m thankful that I’m alive,’ ” preacher Gary Smith says from behind the pulpit to scores of amens and applause.
After eating at the church, Benjamin and Neal leave.
“It’s back to the grind from here,” Neal says, glancing up into the sun, now high overhead.
It’s 2 p. m.
TOO MUCH TO DO
Benjamin opens the front door of her single- story brick home, turns the latch and sighs.
“The storm ripped the door off,” she says.
She then points to a waterline on brick near the front door.
As soon as she opens the door, a rotten stench fills the air.
“Oh, it smells horrible,” Benjamin says.
Like clockwork, the two go to work opening windows and doors.
“She used to not be able to walk without a walker,” Neal says as her mother walked from room to room in the three- bedroom, 11⁄ 2- bath home. “But she had two knee surgeries, and now nothing can stop her.”
Every elevated piece of furniture is covered with household items.
Benjamin was in bed when the water came rushing into her home. She remembers stepping out of bed at 5 a. m. into the cold water on her bedroom’s tile floor.
She was stuck in the home for days with her daughter and Imana. She finally reached her cousin, a firefighter, who sent help.
“They backed a dump truck in, put a ladder down and I climbed in,” she says. “We took off and it went in a ditch. Then another truck had to get us and take us to the convention center.”
It’s now 3: 30 p. m. and time for Neal to return to her home across town in the Parkway Forest neighborhood. She returns to her home to find her son and husband cleaning up.
“I broke down last night at the house and cried,” she says, her eyes now fixed on her front lawn with a large pile of broken and soaked furniture from her home atop it. A LONG DAY DONE Back at the hotel, Benjamin is in her room dressed once again in her pink pajamas and ruffled sleeping cap.
It’s just before 10: 45 p. m., and she is holding a set of colored pencils in her hand. Her granddaughter’s coloring book is on her stomach.
“My granddaughter gave this to me,” she says as her granddaughter runs into the room behind her mother.
“I love coloring,” Benjamin says softly. “It’s so relaxing.”
Her granddaughter, now under the covers of a bed, turns her head, smiles and says, “Me too.”