Facing the Tough Stuff

                                             

            For decades I never told anyone about my biggest, most intense fear: a tornado. When did it begin? It wasn’t always there but serious thinking back failed to reveal its beginning. When I was a very little girl, my mother told me about her family being in a tornado and that she was scared, but that seemed like a “once upon a time” story, happening long before I was born. She was very young herself at the time, so that didn’t really seem real to me. The tornado that carried Dorothy and Toto to the Land of Oz landed the girl in a Technicolor wonderland, so that didn’t seem like such a bad thing. 

            Once during my high school years, I remember standing with neighbors in our front yard watching an eerie wall cloud rumble across the sky above. One of the neighbors (raised in Tornado Alley, Oklahoma) proclaimed it was the classic cloud carrying a tornado ready to dip down at any moment, anywhere along its path, whenever it chose. Impressive enough to take seriously, but it was nothing to cause heart-stopping terror. That came later, gradually; over time it grew from normal caution and respect into a panic response at the mere threat of a storm anywhere in the county. 

             My sister and her husband encountered a small twister while driving along a Missouri highway and left their car and sheltered in a ditch, then, unharmed, drove on their way. I knew they are survivable, but not for me.

My imagination was fed generously by television newsmen and their detailed reports of storms hundreds of miles away—they looked so close on the map and stern warnings issued as the storms developed demanded serious attention. Then one spring storm season, I found myself at home with two small children, a husband working the night shift. I soon formed the habit of sitting up in bed, lights on, waiting for each storm warning to be declared “all clear”, making the next day at work extremely tedious as I sleepwalked through my job. If the storm was particularly close and turbulent (according to my television friend’s warning), on those nights I sat up until the storm passed our area, fully clothed, purse, car keys, flashlight at my fingertips. In case I dozed off, I kept the television on, even though the channels had signed off around midnight, because I knew my faithful protector at Channel 5 would (at full volume) broadcast news of any secondary storm fronts passing by.

            Somewhere along my journey I began to have nightmares about cyclones, usually taking the form of my joining a line of many people standing helplessly, watching a huge tornado approaching from miles away, headed directly for us. Paralyzed with terror, we awaited our doom, making no attempt to escape. Thankfully, in none of those dreams did the storm ever arrive before I awoke. The thought of being buried under what’s left of a house gives a whole new insight into the vengefulness of the witch in Munchkin Land when her sister was squashed by Dorothy’s house arriving suddenly from Kansas.

Yes, when we’re awake, we remember all the warnings to run from them, take cover, promising we can, if caught outdoors, safely outrun a storm and should head at right angles to their path. On the other hand, we also have seen television films showing the erratic hop-skip-jump path they take, leaving debris or clean foundations where a community of homes was an hour earlier, leading me to take those guarantees of safety with a grain of salt. 

Then came the day I learned a lot about myself. 

On an early spring day while I was at work, at Abbott Labs in Irving, there were reports of hook clouds in multiple locations in the immediate area but none had touched down so far. When I left for home at 4:00 the wind was blowing leaves and trash almost horizontally to the road and I could look to the north and west and see several of those hook clouds all around DFW airport, which raised goose bumps and whitened my knuckles on the steering wheel. Then, as though that wasn’t enough to panic me, as I headed south, I passed a police car parked on the median strip of Belt Line Road in Irving, facing north with the driver’s door open and a uniformed policeman standing facing north, his radio to his lips, staring straight at the sky.behind me.

Later that day the TV news reported hanger and small aircraft damage at DFW Airport, less than three miles away, proving I hadn’t overestimated the danger I had avoided. However, still hoping for the best, I turned off Belt Line Road onto the service road to Airport Freeway. Once I entered the freeway the wind accelerated, still horizontal, blowing straight to the south, broadside to my car, carrying such dirt, leaves and small debris that the road almost disappeared. I pulled onto the shoulder and stopped, hoping rain would follow and the wind would die down so I could proceed home. The wind seemed to come in gusts, like a powerful heartbeat, and my car rocked hard with each gust as though my right wheels would leave the ground with the next blow.             

I had recently attended a week-long revival preached by evangelist Jack Taylor and now understood what a shallow, powerless, fearful Christian I had always been. More important I had become convinced that Christians are not limited to their human strengths and are not supposed to live that way. As I sat in that rocking car, I looked across three lanes of traffic to my left and prayed. I recognized that beyond the next few minutes my next sight would likely be heaven or a hospital and prayed my rolling car wouldn’t hit and injure someone else on the freeway. Now calm, the thought came to me; “I need something to hold this car down.” Immediately a song we had sung all week in church came to mind and I began to sing “He’s my rock, He’s my deliverer”. The car heaved mightily once more and then sat glued to the road, stable as the Rock holding it in place. I sat for a while watching the wind still sending dirt, leaves and debris flying across the road yet my car never quivered again. 

If we’re lucky, we may receive such direct assurance of our destiny a few times in a lifetime. This was one of perhaps half dozen great revelations over my eight decades.  His Holy Spirit had physically held me on my feet at my mother’s graveside some twenty years ago. A few years later I watched His loving care through Kathy’s long illness until He opened Heaven’s door for my daughter. His presence was so tangible I felt it would be sacrilege to mourn my loss, knowing her body and speech were now restored and she was singing freely once more, this time directly to the subject of her music: her Lord and God.

All I know is that since that spring day in Irving, I listen to storm warnings and take precautions, taking cover in a closet if need be, but otherwise remain calm. No more nightmares about cyclones, no more morbid fascination with storms, just a quick prayer breathed for any possible victims of the storm as it passed through and reasonable care when called for. .And just t prove it to me, there was a test!

At 3:30 a.m. April 10, 2008, my Father in Heaven again proved He cared for me beyond my safety; He protected me from any remnant of fear that might remain in a dark corner of my heart. You see, the power went out during the night before, keeping me awake for a few hours. By bedtime on April 9, I was exhausted enough to sleep through the strange-sounding wind that woke my neighbors and sent them to their hallway for safety. No chance of my worrying or being fearful, even though a few hours earlier I had seen on the television radar screen that a tornado, forming and dissolving and forming again, was on a path toward south Hurst. 

However, at 3:30 a.m. a monstrous crash and a ball of fire outside my window raised me inches above my recliner. I was convinced there had been a very close lightning strike because the flash of light and the booming noise were almost simultaneous. I knew the power was off, the phone and security system both dead, but after a couple of hours, dozed off again. Until a neighbor knocked on my door the next morning I didn’t know the huge cottonwood tree next door had fallen on my roof. Actually their elm tree fell on their kitchen and the cottonwood fell on their garage and my house, totaling their kitchen and denting their car through a hole in the garage roof. It took out a section of fence, totaled my air conditioner, and bent double the power pole holding electric wiring to my house, leaving my electric meter, telephone box and breaker box dangling. It left a hole in the roof, 3 damaged rafter tails with a half-moon bite out of the roofing overhang—about four feet from where I was sleeping.              

When I ventured outside that morning, the man next door said his mother had earlier called 911 but since no one came, an hour later he called and the Fire Department were there almost immediately, from their station two blocks away. They sealed the neighbor’s house and part of my yard with yellow hazard tape. His kitchen roof was now accordion-shaped and there were downed wires over both our back yards. The street was full of people talking, wondering what to do first. One woman looked up and waved at the news helicopter flying over and a man with a commercial camcorder on his shoulder followed me to the back yard to look at the damage, trying to interview me before I had washed my face or combed my hair. It was surreal—I felt like I was watching it unfold on a newsreel. 

The next couple of days were a blur of strangers tramping through my yard as I tried to figure out how to deal with the damage. The owner of the tree hired someone to remove both huge trees from both houses about three days later. (It took the crew three days to finish.) In the meantime my roofer put a temporary patch over the hole in my roof and I found someone to remove a couple of branches looming over the electrical wiring hash so a very obliging electrician could get his day’s work done. 

By the second day two neighbors whose power was still working brought extension cords to keep my freezer and refrigerator working. Other neighbors shared power with those across the street, where the entire block was dark for four days. The early spring nights were cold without heat, but I refused to go to a hotel and leave my home unlocked with an open door for the lifeline to my fridge and leave my precious dog alone and fearful. We kept each other warm, listened to KCBI FM on a battery radio for Christian music reminding me of my blessings. There was cereal and milk for breakfast, cheese and cold cuts for lunch and Celina next door brought me a hot dinner three nights.

Three of my phone extensions were working; three were not. During the week I left home briefly twice, for a hot meal and a few groceries. I was reluctant to leave the house for fear of missing a call back from carpenters, roofers, tree trimmers, electricians who could help restore my poor house to normalcy. Monday the electrician repaired the wiring and installed a new breaker box and called the City for inspection. The inspector arrived midday Tuesday and called Oncor to install a new meter and turn on power. It took four phone calls to get them there by Wednesday at 5:30 and there were thanksgiving and a hot meal that evening, six hours shy of a full week!

My insurance adjuster arrived from Chicago Thursday and had a check cut for the full amount of the claim, less my $1300 deductible, without holding back the depreciation portion until work was completed. My new air conditioner is installed and paid for, as is the electrician. Carpentry work took a little longer, but the estimate was well within the total claim amount. 

No one was hurt during this storm and inconvenience is secondary. A silent house in a long dark night is a great place to reflect on your relationship with your Protector, your Comforter, your Eternal Companion. Through His grace, I had the money for the insurance premium and the deductible, I was guided to competent, trustworthy workers for the repairs and met four very nice neighbors, one of whom was a new widow who could use a friend. God is good indeed.