Tornado Thoughts

Oklahoma Tornado

 

Once again a killer storm has swiped across the nation , killing many and leaving thousands to view the rubble that was their lives. Tornadoes this time. Last week it was the California wildfires, last month Midwestern floods. Over and over we’ll hear, “We have nothing, but we’re alive.”

But you’ve heard the words so often they’ve lost their punch, become almost trite. And it isn’t you. You’re too busy to tarry long in front of the television screen, anyway. Or to think. Or even to read a sentence of more than ten words. So you turn back to whirling through your overburdened days—until it’s your turn..

You’re standing in the middle of the street, rain soaking through your sweatshirt, staring at the rubble that was your house. It’s gone. Your son is holding onto you weeping. The soccer game he’s dressed for is no more. The building on fire downtown was you job. The house across town you were buying with the granite counter tops and five piece master bath is rubble. The dentist your daughter was to see today is lying beneath the bricks of his office. So is your neighbor and his barking dogs that woke you at five this morning. Across the street rescue workers dig out the body of Bob Stone, whose political beliefs you derided daily.

What’s left?

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