Although her life as she knew was uprooted by the October floods which also devastated hundreds of families across Northern and Central Trinidad, Kelly Gardens resident, Shira O’Brien, is optimistic that it will get better.
She is willing herself to remain positive and looks forward to the upcoming Christmas season to spend time with loved ones.
“I’m not complaining, I’m looking at the positive,” O’Brien said.
“The positive is the togetherness of the people…the compassion and the kindness, the support we got from fellow Trinidadians who weren’t affected and even those who were and still came and assisted.”
Like thousands of other flood victims who benefited from an outpouring of love and charity from private citizens, O’Brien remains thankful for the generosity as it helped them get back on their feet.
The Government set up a special fund of $25m to assist flood victims, many of whom received grants as much as $20,000 each. Some families are still awaiting this payment.
She lost all her household belongings during the flood but is thankful that the structure of the house was not damaged.
Admittedly and unavoidably, this year’s festivities for the family will be different.
By this time of the year, the O’Brien family would usually have up their Christmas tree and fully decorated to match the décor of their home.
They are accustomed spending most nights together enjoying Christmas movies, in true Christmas spirit.
However, this year is different —there are no lights outside her home, there isn’t any tree with presents under it and her house is bare of festive decorations.
“This year is going be very quiet. I’m not going to spend money on Christmas gifts and those sort of things—people know that. I mean they’ll be lucky if they get a card,” O’Brien said.
O’Brien’s daughter said rebuilding is slower now as “it happens to be an unfortunate time of year because it’s before Christmas and people you would need to do the work—painters, carpenters, that sort of thing—they’re usually very saturated with work of their own as people do regular preparations for Christmas.”
O’Brien is concerned they may not be able to get to a point in the works that will allow them to put up a tree.
“We are hoping that we can finish the painting of the bedrooms. Once we do that, we’d move out and clear here the living room and once we do that, then we can bring a tree…if we do, it’ll be by the end of next week.”
In spite of this, she proudly insists that the one thing that always has and will remain are their family movie nights and bonding.