A Drive on Route 35 Mantoloking and Brick Reopens The Wounds

Diane and I had our first opportunity to drive along the recently reopened Route 35 in Brick and Mantoloking yesterday. There will never be words to describe what we saw.For many people, the rebuilding has begun, but for others, it's as if the storm just happened yesterday. The utter devastation we witnessed literally took the oxygen out of our lungs and the words from our mouths.

When we were able to speak the only thing I could manage was to remind her, with fear in my voice, just how close to our home this was. How could this have happened to our neighbors? I thought it as if it happened yesterday.

These homes, or what was left of them, were the very same ones we all saw on newscasts broadcast all over the world just days after Sandy, but as so many of us have learned, seeing them in person made us realize those horrendous, frightening and bone chilling images didn't do the devastation justice. And that is so sad.

We continued our drive south and were no more able to find words in Normandy Beach, Lavalette and Ortley Beach and all the other towns we silently drove through. Here we are, three months later and still all of it hasn't soaked in.

I wonder if we will ever be able to truly wrap our minds around what has happened to us. Maybe, but just not yet.