Field Notes from Rolling Fork
"This is what being from Mississippi means to me, in action. We rally for our people, and we don’t question why, we only ask how."
Rooted Magazine Community Editor Maya Miller is the Reproductive Health Reporter for the Gulf States Newsroom, a public radio collaborative in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama. She covered the March 24, 2023 tornadoes in Rolling Fork, Mississippi.
A child, no older than single digits, stares up at me with a 2 x 4 held tightly to her chest. She stands, in a pink hoodie and a soft yellow shirt that’s faded so much, I can’t decide if it was once white or simply dyed that way. It’s somewhat humid where we are. We’ve reached a standstill—her debating whether her thin arms could hold one more plank, and me thinking of whether I should help her, if I could somehow carry my recorder, her wood, her depthless grief and the answers to her questions, all with two hands. I’ve bitten my cuticles down to the quick, and I have a headache so bad that I could vomit, so instead, I step to the right, and she goes to my left. As she lays down what used to be a piece of her grandmother’s front porch, or maybe it was her aunt’s staircase, the wind kicks up dust in a field just across the street. I squint my eyes to the light.
On Friday, March 24, sometime in the 8 o’clock hour, a tornado struck down in Rolling Fork and crossed Mississippi all the way up into Alabama. It was a big one, they said, with 200 mile per hour winds that swallowed homes and cars like small, plastic tokens rolling around a toy box, then scattered them all throughout the Delta. 21 people died. Funerals began within two days.
That Saturday morning was the first time an editor has ever called me on the weekend, but this wasn’t my first time being witness to the aftermath of a natural disaster. Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the Gulf South the same year I started junior high school. The water washed away my aunts’ homes, and wind split the oak tree under which my uncles used to play chess.
It’s weird what I remember of those weeks—how the humidity seemed to soak into my socks, the way a bologna sandwich with no mayo (no electricity to keep it cold) swelled in my mouth and stuck to my back teeth, and the way that no one ever explained to me what was going on, only that 17 relatives had to cram into our tiny two bedroom apartment hundreds of miles away from the Lower 9th Ward.
The aftermath of natural disaster taught me the art of the tactful conversation starter. “I’m sorry for your loss.” “Tell me what happened.” “How are you holding up?” A reply might return to you in a number of ways: “Thank you, we’re OK.” “Well, it went like this.” “We’re tired, but we’re blessed.” But standing in front of a girl who has been assigned to placing wood onto a salvage heap, piece by plank, I learn that there are infinite ways the mind will string together words in the silence of someone unsure of where to begin.
I think of the ways that her family mirrors mine. I think about how her grandmother had five daughters. And how one of those daughters is now gone, her house ripped apart by the tornado.
I think about how I am standing on what used to be someone’s porch. And how the dirt beneath my white sneakers, now stained amber and gray, has dried and cracked like fissures in the desert. There’s a foundation under a crushed blue car, made of the same pebbled concrete of my patio where I drink tea most mornings. I stand on one of its corners. I cannot see the others.
Being from Mississippi, I feel an enduring sense of belonging. I’m a part of a large family unit. I spend my days reporting in service to communities. And when disaster strikes such as this one, I’ve witnessed just how selfless others can be, offering their time to make sure people in places they’ve never heard of have fresh food in their stomachs. Or holding a mother’s baby while she makes a “shopping list” at a donation hub. Or a dozen men straining their backs to lift the altar from a church that is now without a single pew for Sunday service.
This is what being from Mississippi means to me, in action. We rally for our people, and we don’t question why, we only ask how. How can we help you feel at home again?
I tuck my mic into my armpit and help the little girl drag a sliver of a front door onto the wood pile. The glass flower motif in its cream surface remains unbroken.
“I’m so sorry,” I say.
The rain picks up, and we both pull our hoods over our heads. She smiles.
“It’s OK,” she says. She turns away and finds another piece of wood to throw onto the pile.
For more news out of Rolling Fork and the lower Delta, visit Mississippi Public Broadcasting online. For information on how to help communities with recovery relief, visit Mississippi Emergency Management Agency for updates and donation lists.
If you’re just joining us, be sure to catch up on our Rooted contributor issues from the past month.
Church Goin Mule writes about finding home, community, and inspiration in the Mississippi Delta as a Southern artist.
Rooted editor-in-chief Lauren Rhoades describes how the daily scaffolding of her life has become intertwined with Mississippi after living here for nearly a decade.
Originally from Mississippi, physician Denise Powell writes about her experience returning to her home state to fight for health equity after spending her medical residency training in San Francisco.
Delta native Linda Williams Jackson describes how moving back to her home state allowed her to hone her writing voice and craft her award-winning books, all of which take place in Mississippi.
Rooted community editor Shira Muroff writes about how Mississippi has shaped her friendships and traditions, and how she feels a duty to amplify Mississippians’ stories as part of the Rooted editorial team.
Beautiful, heartbreaking piece. Thank you, Maya.