A Sanibel resident and her family wait, worry and wonder: What comes next?

We're all in this together, aren't we, whatever "this" is?

I asked myself that as I waited in line to grab a quick dinner for my husband and me the night after Hurricane Ian knocked power out across part of Brevard County, and heard people complaining about the wait.

And I thought about it again as I saw social media posts from people seemingly more concerned about restaurant options and dashed plans than the fact that other Floridians died as a result of Ian's wrath. That countless families are drowning in grief and the rubble that used to be their community — while at the same time, first responders, nonprofit volunteers and utility workers from near and far stepped up across the Gulf Coast and Central Florida.

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I didn't get emotional, though, until I read a post from my friend Holly McEntyre, who sits in a hotel room more than 100 miles from her home in Sanibel with no idea what comes next.

She evacuated from the island to a hotel in Davie, Florida, with her father, Joe; her 104-year-old paternal grandmother, Helen Seaman; the family's part-time caregiver Marcy; neighbor Ruth; and two much-loved cats, Mimi and Cat Stevens.

They've seen aerial photos that tell them their home is there — but they have no clue as to what the future holds, except that they'll need to rent a house ... somewhere. As Sanibel City Manager Dana Souza put it Saturday:  "There is not utilities. There is not water. There is not sewer. There is not electricity. And it’s more than spartan."

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It's not like the McEntyre family hasn't had enough grief to manage recently.

Holly's mother, Judith "Judi" McEntrye, 82, died at home on Sept. 8 after a long struggle with dementia that Holly, as a caregiver but more important, as a daughter, had lovingly, starkly detailed over the past few years on social media.

"We were still shell-shocked from that," she said.

"And then we're just starting to peek around the corner from that, and the hurricane comes in. We're just, for lack of a better phrase, blown away."

So Holly and a family forged by love wait.

And as Holly — a brilliant woman who is a former University of Cincinnati professor — wonders about what's next, she writes.

In a Facebook post that drove me to call her, she started off by writing:

"Some of the things we have lost, temporarily or forever, from the ridiculous to the sublime: Mail, condolences, bikes, books, music recordings, sheet music, guitars and amps, Israeli folk music and dance notes in Mom's hand, TV, computer and printers, pictures, furniture, food, dishes and cookware, Mom's and my jewelry. People and ways of life we may never see again. Mom's wedding dress."

"I needed to put this out there for me," Holly told me.

"Because I need to be able to grieve. And I also want to humanize this for other people because I know I didn't always comprehend what people are going through. I don't even that know a lot of that stuff may be restored to me when we get to our home. That's it. I don't know."

"Beaches. Sanctuary. Visits and visitors. Our home. The house where Mommy died. Rakes, axes, chainsaws, tools. Records of a household and our pasts. So many pictures and intentions and dreams."

Things with heartbeats, we agreed, are most important. It might sound trite but it's what we say to each other because we know it's true, even when a part of us wants to push a fist through caving drywall.

And it's OK, I assured her, to miss the little things, too, the kinds I missed when Hurricane Irma took the roof off our house and garage in 2017 and I sat between soggy boxes saying goodbye to assorted trinkets — silly, sentimental things you don't realize don't matter until tragedy forces you to realize ... they don't matter.

Holly misses Sanibel already, the Sanibel she moved to in 2011, the place where Judi enjoyed walking the beach and dad Joe still teaches tennis and grooms clay courts.

"Established relationships with chiropractor, doctors, dentist, library, pharmacy, hospice. Sanibel Rec Center, Beachview tennis, Dad's jobs. Bailey's. J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge."

She mourns her mother, who loved to dance and wanted to live by the water long before she and Joe bought their last home in 2014. Who met Joe while the two were at Goddard College, married him in 1960, worked for him when he became a lawyer. Who passed the Vermont bar herself without going to law school and worked in the legal department of National Life Insurance Company until 1997 and retirement in Florida.

"So much loss and change. And I am only one person, we are only one family among many thousands, each with their own list of losses, their own vitally, fundamentally changed possessions, relationships and journeys. Each with opportunities for growth and healing, yes, but those stories are for another day."

Yes. We're all in this together, Holly's words taught me. We're just all on a different journey through whatever "this" is.

That's the irony of it — the gifts a tragedy like Hurricane Ian forces on us, Holly said.

Like learning to live in the moment, and "that we are capable of dealing with it," whatever form that proverbial "it" takes.

"People got through Katrina and Irma, and they're getting through in Ukraine and everywhere else. My cousin told me, when her mom was dying from cancer and she was taking care of her, 'You do it because it's you have to. It's what's in front of you,'" Holly said.

"What's your other option? Sit down and quit?"

Contact Kennerly at bkennerly@floridatoday.com. Twitter: @bybrittkennerly Facebook: /bybrittkennerly. Local journalism like this needs your support. Consider subscribing to your local newspaper. See our current offers.

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This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Sanibel evacuee: 'I want to humanize this for other people'