Dumpling Rocks Lighthouse Story Thank You

(Editor's note: This letter is in response to story titled

"Dumpling Rocks Lighthouse Memories" that appeared

in the August 2007 issue of Lighthouse Digest.)

I just got my Lighthouse Digest and the printed article was presented very well and, once again, I was so glad to know that my parents' story again was being told. It brought back memories of me hearing them tell it – as I had heard it ever so many times – and immediately on reading it, I could picture my parents sharing in the telling of their experience during the storm and even I recall the expressions on their faces as they would relate this story to friends and visitors to the lighthouse. It struck me, even as a child, that this WAS really traumatic on them as even when telling it, they would bead up with sweat, tear up and generally end the story holding each other.

I mean you had to be there to experience it, but every time they told it, it became a moment in time where even I as a kid appreciated the pure out fact they had faced death right on and helpless to do anything about it. The story would always end with Dad stating that no matter what the loss, no matter how close they had come to dying, they ended up with hope. This always implied to me that hope was the glue of life.

Little did I know then that I would have my own great hurricane experience so many years later in 2005. It was pure deja vu for me from hearing the 1938 hurricane story of my parents to find that I, too, came away from the loss and the trauma of it to find that the greatest gifts were just those my parents had stated all those years before – #1- Life #2 - Each other, and, yes, #3 - Hope.

So, thank you, Tim for letting others read my folks' story. It's all true, all very true, and the truest thing of all is the end experience that out of these things if you survive, you are imbued with a new respect for life, for each other, and especially for hope.

Best wishes,

Seamond Roberts

This story appeared in the October 2007 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.

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