Joplin Tornado - My Story Day 2

I had been so tired the night before that I went to bed at 9:00pm. My eyes were wide open at 5:30 the next morning. Couldn't I have slept a little longer? I wanted to. Oh well, take the dog out.

I didn't know where the leash was, so we went out without it. Fortunately Shai didn't seem too interested in running away. We can do this, I thought. My legs were so sore and stiff that it made me walk funny.

After a wonderful breakfast I went down to the main house to . . . what? I had nothing to do. Sweet little Bethany put on the movie "Tangled" and we watched.

I kept trying to call Jeff, Marci, anybody, and couldn't get through.

The plan was sandwiches for lunch. So I had some vegetables. Shai kept eating their dog's food, and he ate Shai's prescription food. Hard to keep it separated. Oh well, he's not going to develop bladder stones in a few days.

Mark had gone to the house the day before to retrieve all my musical instruments and take them to a climate controlled place. I was relieved that they were safe, as were most of my paintings and family pictures. After lunch Jeff and Rhonda arrived with more rescued stuff from the house - my jewelry, some clothes, stuff from the bathroom and dresser. He said they had a surprise for me in the car. A surprise?

We went to the car and opened the back door. I looked in and there on the clothes was a very panicked cat, with bits of insulation in her fur. I grabbed her before she could dash out of the car and hugged her.

Kiki had been out in the storm, and had come back to our house. She found it broken, empty, wet, and abandoned, and no food put out for her. So she crawled into a dry closet and hid there where Rhonda found her. Rhonda offered to keep her at her apartment, and we decided that was the best thing to do. So, trip to Walmart, the other one since ours was gone, to get litter box and food, and took her to Rhonda's. She was not a happy camper, and ran and hid behind the couch. She was going to need a bath, and would not be happy about that either. Oh well, let Rhonda worry about that.

It was still raining off and on. In the evening there was another storm watch. We tried to watch the news, but the reception was pretty bad. Jeff was there with us for the night when the watch became a warning. We had pillows, blankets, flashlights, games, radio and diabetes kit for Bethany ready to go, so picked it all up and went next door to the basement of the church. The James's were so organized.

There were no comfortable chairs to sit in, and I was pretty stiff and sore. I thought about sitting in the wheelchair, but that was needed for Grandpa. Oh well. I sat and crocheted on the little afghan for my grandson.

I was a little surprised to find that I didn't have any feelings of panic or fear at our run for shelter. There were only thoughts of how bad it would be if another tornado touched down. I did find, however, that little sounds did cause me to startle much more easily. Everyone kept asking, "How are you doing?"

"We're fine," I always said, and meant it. We had no needs that were not taken care of, we were all safe and uninjured, even both of our pets were fine. I smiled, laughed at jokes, and enjoyed the company of a lot of great young people, and slept pretty well at night. Just kept waking up way too early.

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