'It touched me:' Young sisters clean up P.E.I. cemetery after Dorian

Trina Chaissonwanted to checkon her family members' tombstones on Monday to make sure they weren't damagedafter Hurricane Dorian hit P.E.I.

She brought her two daughters, Paisley and Storm Adams, who accompany her regularly to visit the graves of Chaisson'smom, grandmother and uncles at St. Paul's cemetery in Summerside.

Chaissonsaid the girls were anxious to go eat lunch, but they changed their tune once they saw the mess of broken branches and splintered trees that littered the cemetery.

"Paisley noticed that a lantern had fallen down," said Chaisson. "So she grabbed it and put it back up. And then from there it kind of snowballed."

Flowers for every grave

Chaisson said Paisley, 8, and Storm, 10, started running around the cemetery, gathering flowers andtidying up each grave.

"I felt bad because everybody's flowers got knocked off and a lot of people's stuff was broken," said Storm.

Chaissonsaid they also noticed that some tombstones had flowers while others didn't. Paisley said she and her sister decided to evenly split up each bouquet so each gravewould have some decoration.

"I like helping them," she said.

"She said it was the people that she thought needed more love [was]where she was going to put more flowers," said Chaisson.

"She got her big sister to help her and they kind of just ran all through the graveyard every which way, running back for more flowers because they couldn't carry them all at once."

Chaisson said it took her daughters an hour and a halfto put everything back the way it was before the storm hit, during which they completely forgot about lunch.

"We were getting ready to leave and [Paisley]noticed there was a great big tree down on top of a grave," said Chaisson. "So she grabbedhold of that. She starts trying to yank it. And she's 50 pounds. And she couldn't move it at all so she got her sister Storm to come over and they cleaned it up."

We just have to take a minute sometimes and think we're still here and things aren't as bad as we think they are. Trina Chaisson

Chaisson posted photos of the girls' efforts to Facebookand was amazed by the response.

"I was just overwhelmed. Some of the people said that they were crying tears of joy and it really hit home."

She said people started to reach out to her afteridentifyingfamily members' names in the photos, wanting to thank Paisley and Storm.

Act of kindness

"There was a grave forDonna Lee Clow Paisley had fixed up the letters on the grave, and her daughter messaged me. She said that her mom passed away suddenly in June," said Chaisson.

"Just to know that Paisley and Storm made her feel good in a really horrible situation was just it touched me more than anything I think."

Chaisson said she's proudher children initiatedthe cleanup and hopes it provides a brief moment of happinessamid Dorian'sdestruction.

"We just have to take a minute sometimes and think we're still here and things aren't as bad as we think they are," she said.

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