Dorothy, Are we in Kanasas?

The sky turned that icky color of gray-green. A sky like a child sick with a severe stomach ache. Heaving, blowing, rolling, and ready to erupt. And then the lightning struck straight down, wide, blinding, cracking right outside our 4-season room--ripping the bark right off of a huge tree--so loud it took my breath away. I heard the blood curdling scream and realized it was coming from the depth of my core. The uncontrollable tears poured out of my eyes like an inner ocean I didn’t realize I had. I was sobbing uncontrollably for what seemed forever. Panic and fear set in. Just as I was able to catch my breath and the sobbing subsided, the pings and hits began on the house and windows. We ran for the basement. The “train” was literally using our house as a track.


No sooner had we gotten down in the basement, then it got quiet and all we could hear was the blistering rain. We slowly ascended the stairs hoping that we’d just had a bit of heavy wind. Little did we know.

Our back yard, front yard, side yard, down the street, across the street, over to the next subdivision, had been hit by a bomb. What was our beautiful neighborhood looked like a war zone, save only, thank God, without any human casualties. The casualties were homes, trees, gardens. Thousands and thousands of dollars in damage. My thoughts went to the squirrels and birds and other nature creatures out there amongst all the rubble. And we were told ours was not the hardest hit.

Neighbors were out immediately checking on each other, crying out to each other to see if everyone was OK. We were hugging, crying, all in a bit of shock at the devastation. And then the rain came again, in sheets. Night descended and we knew all we could do was go to bed and wait until the light of morning to survey the complete extent of the damage.

We went to bed with the comfort that we were not hurt, we still had each other, we just had a lot of clean- up to do. And so the task is at hand and we must begin.

Anybody need some wood?