A Year Ago

This time one year ago I was sitting across the table from my Father in Law eating what would be the first of many fast food meals together. Dressed in the warmest clothes we could scrounge up and tattered from the storm, we realized we hadn't stopped to eat or drink anything for lunch or snack. We were glad we'd had a big breakfast to get us through the day. We had to drive through several towns on our way home before we reached a restaurant with electricity and the electricity at this place had just come back on.

The kids had been at Baba's for several hours. My mom, my father in law, my husband and I had worked several hours to close up the house as best we could. We'd used tarps and nails from the garage. Two by fours and pieces of wood were taken off the ground and used to fasten the tarps over windows and doors. We had to take the garage door off the garage in order to remove our vehicles, but that meant our home wasn't quite as secure. If memory serves me right, it took us a few days to get wood up over the garage door in place of the tarps.. We made every effort to secure our home but it still felt very vulnerable. A swipe of a pocket knife could slice open a tarp and en elbow to an already compromised window pane could have easily gained a person entry into our place. The four of us had done everything we could with every last bit  of energy we had to climb ladders, swing hammers and pack suitcases before darkness, cold and police forced us to evacuate. Leaving our house was reminiscent of leaving our baby in the NICU. We'd done our best, but we wondered if that'd be enough to keep our house safe. Worries of looters fluttered in our minds but we didn't have the extra energy to spend on things we couldn't control. We had taken countless pictures of the house that day. Not only did we want to record the damage to the property for insurance purposes, but we wanted to photograph our belongings as they sat when we left the house in case vandals pounced. Our most precious possessions, our family members, were safe. And at the end of days one and two that's all I really cared about. "I'm Alive" as Kenny Chesney's song says is all that mattered. Sure, I wanted to repair our house, but in the most desperate of times, the only thing that mattered to me was that my people were okay.

That night we dropped our suitcases on the living room floor of my in laws house. We set up the hide a bed, air mattress and couch in the living room as our living quarters. It was a few days before we were ready to sleep in rooms separate from each other. The slightest discomfort from sleeping on a couch or air mattress didn't matter because we wanted to be close.

I knew today, the one year anniversary, was coming. It is a square on the calendar, after all. It is inevitable that the days and hours will tick down and one morning I would wake up and it would be the one year anniversary. You can't avoid it. However, I didn't anticipate the weight of the day. I told myself I'd focus on all the wonderful people who helped us. I would focus on the gift cards, cookie trays, cards, fleece blankets, boxes of specialty foods, home cooked meals, packages of stuffed animals and candies we received. I would focus on the amount of time and effort coworkers, families, friends, friends of friends and strangers put in to helping at our house. I'd set my thoughts on memories of the block party, the clothing, toy and shoe giveaways. I'd remember good friends coming to play with us at our hotel and friends meeting us at Chuck E Cheese to get the neighbor kids together. We made efforts to meet up for pizza and play time at Jumping Jax. So many, many terrific memories. I did my best to set myself up to have thoughts of gratitude and for most of the day today I was grateful. But, I'll be honest, I didn't wake up that way. I sent a text to my mom and my sister early in the morning that said, " I'm both grouchy and grateful today. I'm headed over to a neighbors to hang out with other tornado ladies. Maybe they will have mixed emotions too."
Today I had moments of being ticked off, sad, scared and annoyed. I was annoyed because every time I turned my head I had a  memory of what happened in that spot on that day and I couldn't really turn that off. After a while I came to the realization that I hadn't really ever turned off the "instant replay" button in my head since the moment the tornado hit. I realized that everywhere we look there is a memory good or bad of things that happened that day and I bet we'll have those moments of instant replay for  some time to come. I went to my friend's house and hung out with other tornado ladies as I mentioned, and that was the best thing any of us could have done. It was good for us to be together to chat about where we are now and where we were that day. Somehow sharing time with them gave me peace.

As the one year anniversary date comes to an end I am back to being content and grateful. Our home is warm, our lights are on and our water is running. Our family is healthy and everything else is just icing on the cake.We are home. We are home sweet home and we are immensely thankful.While we still have insurance details to wrap up, boxes to unpack and a few things to organize, we are settled in. We won't be sleeping on couches or air mattresses.

There was a point in the last year where we'd eaten so much fast food that my husband and I said we'd never eat a single french fry again in our life. Ironically, last night when we took our parents to dinner to commemorate the one year anniversary we both at french fries!! I guess that's yet another sign that we're back to normal.