Video of Aric Harding playing the piano amid his flooded home has begun making the rounds online, showing a Hurricane Harvey victim’s attempt to see “beauty in the suffering.”
Harding, a father of seven and a resident of Friendswood, Texas returned to find his family’s home flooded by several inches of water. He sat down at the piano his children use to practice and recorded himself playing.
“I went back to our street today because as you guys have probably seen the water has come back with a vengeance,” he wrote in the caption accompanying the video on Instagram. “I hope this was its high point. I grabbed the kids’ favorite stuffed animals that we had left behind and a couple of games to keep the kids occupied. I think it’s all finally sinking in a little. What we used to have going as a city is gone. I really think God is going to do something completely new here. I am excited to see the new beauty in the suffering.”
“I decided to take a moment and play and take it all in,” Harding said in an interview with CNN. He said the response to the video has been warm, with one viewer even offering to send the family a new piano.
On Thursday, Harding shared images of the beginning of the clean-up process. “We are one of 8 houses on our street. So much left to do,” he wrote. “Our neighbors are headed back in town and it’s only just begun. Our church had been a huge blessing.”