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.

Anniversary approaching

Our town is hosting several events to mark the one year anniversary of the tornado. An obstacle course will be held as a metaphor to note all the obstacles we've overcome in the last year. Church services, prayer breakfasts, a craft show and a community walk will take place. Small groups will gather at home and social media groups are already chatting. The anticipation of the anniversary is palpable. Helicopters fly over our community every day to gather the latest footage of recovery. Radio and television stations are promoting their feature stories and have been for days. Newspapers publish articles. It's all the talk online. The media in every form buzzing around the city takes us all back to that day. I don't recall hearing the helicopters whirling overhead the day of the tornado but others in town do. Many have said that sound stirs up their emotions much like the tornado siren tests, wind, fire alarms and rescue vehicles does for me. The thought of the media in relation to the tornado takes me back the evening of the tornado. That days seemed like several long days strung together with no break for meals or night time. Surely that day was more than twenty four hours. D and I and our parents worked super hard all day to get the boys to safety and to button up our house that we hadn't looked passed our property. When we emerged from the rubble and made our way to the outskirts of town we saw countless media vehicles. Due to curfew and darkness we were on our way our way out of town. Media from all over the state had their vehicles parked on the edge of the interstate. With their tripods set up and their flood lamps on, a row of reporters situated themselves in the ditch with the devastation in the background. That was when it hit me that this was bad….

I can't possibly sum up all my thoughts in a couple of paragraphs, so I will share them in a handful of posts. 

Eat, Sleep, Breathe

Our insurance gives us 360 days, not quite a full year, to wrap up our claims for our dwelling and our personal property. We've been granted an extension of about forty five more days, but those forty five extra days happen to fall during Thanksgiving and Christmas. And as we all know those two holidays  require their own amount of attention and preparation. Our goal is to get our receipts turned in before the holiday hustle and bustle but it's nice to know we have a little time in case we need it. In our experience we've found that it takes a considerable amount of time for the insurance company to do their part after they get our packet, so we're trying to allow time for that. For the past couple of weeks D has been emailing and calling the new person (having a new person to deal with is another topic for another time) who been assigned our claim. He hadn't heard from her until yesterday and she said she hadn't even opened the two packets of receipts and dwelling claims we sent her almost two months ago. Oy! She's totally swamped. I would not want to be in her shoes!

As we are locating our receipts we need to recall where we bought the item. Did we make that purchase in a store or online? If we bought it in a store we have to think about where we were living at the time. If we bought that thing while living in the hotel we put the receipts in one designated spot. If we were living in the rental house it was in a certain spot and if it was purchased after moving back home it can be found in a new spot. Our receipts have some miles on them. They've been packed up and moved with each new place we lived. We feel like we've made every possible effort to keep things organized, but there inevitably is the missing receipt. Once we've dug through boxes and baskets to find that missing little piece of paper it's like winning the lottery to find it!! But before we unfold that paper we say a tiny little prayer that the ink is still legible. Online receipts are a Godsend! We can search through email and store accounts to find the receipt or order history and print a fresh new receipt.

Yesterday I planned my day around insurance work. I planned to exercise early in the morning so I could work on personal property claims while L was at preschool. When he got home we ate lunch and played a little. Then a friend (who had the day off for parent teacher conference asked to play) knocked on the door and asked to play. I said if it was okay with his mom he could play inside our house while I work on claims. It was okay with her, so L and P played really well in the basement while found receipts, made copies, identified their claim line item number and  calculated their totals. Soon it was time to send our friend home and get N off the bus. My boys had a snack and while they played I continued with more receipts. D got home from work and we talked about insurance while I cooked. We talked over a few things while we ate and while we put dishes away. After dinner the boys played well again so we continued our conversation. We played with the boys, got them to bed and continued to work on receipts. By about eight o'clock I was burnt out on receipts so I took a break from them to take advantage of a good sale on Christmas cards. We dream about receipts and we wake up early thinking about them. Come to think of it, we eat, sleep and breathe insurance these days.

We are beginning to see the light at the end of the insurance tunnel, but we've also come to a realization. And that realization came to light yesterday after talking to the insurance agent. She was  nice but, because she is new to our claim, D had to start at the beginning of this whole ordeal and walk her through emails and conversations we've had over the history of the account to catch her up to speed. Just when we think we are done and we've buttoned things up and handed them in, we have to revisit the details. It's exhausting but I can honestly say that overall our insurance has been really good to us. We're just so ready to be done with all of this.