LOCKHART, Texas – Aaron Parsley went to bed the night before the Fourth of July after enjoying a day along the Guadalupe River with his family.
Hours later, he woke in the dark to rushing water and a home being ripped apart around them.
“We went to bed a happy family,” Parsley said. “And we woke up in the middle of the night in a death trap.”
Parsley, a senior editor at Texas Monthly, was among the many along the Guadalupe River who were thrust into catastrophe when floodwaters tore apart homes and carried people downstream.
He, along with his husband Patrick, father, sister, brother-in-law, and two children, faced the wrath of nature as they were swept into the river.
Tragically, not everyone made it out alive.
“We lost my nephew, Clay,” Parsley recounted, his voice heavy with grief. “And it’s the most horrific morning of my life. And we’ve been dealing with the consequences ever since.”
By sheer luck, Parsley managed to survive the flood. “I survived by sheer luck, I think,” he said. “I managed to get myself into a tree — a tree that held.”
In the year following the flood, Parsley has taken a deliberate approach to process his experience, reporting and writing about his family’s loss and survival.
Through articles and a podcast for Texas Monthly, he has shared his family’s story publicly while also using the platform as a private form of processing — a means to grieve, remember, and continue moving forward.
“The experience of survival changes you,” Parsley reflected. “It puts things in perspective. It changes your priorities.”
Since the flood, he and Patrick have re-evaluated their outlook on the future. “Before the flood, I think I was more cautious around plans for my life and our life — my husband and I’s life together,” he shared.
“I don’t want to say that we’re living on borrowed time,” Parsley added, “but it does feel like we’ve been given a chance to continue our story.”
This shift in perspective has led to tangible changes in their lives. The couple has moved into a new home, opting for the quieter life of Lockhart, a smaller community southeast of Austin, over the city’s hustle and bustle.
While standing in a studio space attached to Patrick’s creative pursuit of painting professionally, Parsley described their new life as part of a broader reordering of what matters.
“This kind of represents to me that shift in priority since the flood,” he noted.
The disaster clarified for him what he wanted most in the moments when he feared for his life: time.
“When I was unsure about whether or not I would survive and unsure about whether I would see my husband again, the thought that I had more than anything was that I want more time with him,” Parsley explained. “And I want him to have what he wants.”
Parsley’s powerful account of the flood has garnered national attention, including a Pulitzer Prize, but he emphasizes that the impact of the disaster continues long after the headlines fade. “Along the Guadalupe, there are countless families still navigating loss and rebuilding,” he stated.
“There are stories all up and down the river of loss, but also of resilience,” he added. “And I think, you know, I will follow the story.”
For Parsley and his family, that story is ongoing — written in memory, in grief, and in the deliberate choice to keep living.
