Moore Tornadoes, Moore Heartache

It's been awhile since I've written. I've had a lot on my mind the last few weeks, mainly tornadoes and the people of Oklahoma who were slammed with storms and tornado warnings almost daily for weeks. The worst of those being the EF5 that struck the town of Moore. I heard about the tornado on the radio as I was driving home from work that Monday afternoon, and I felt God pulling at me to do something. I came home, turned on the TV, and couldn't turn away from the coverage from Oklahoma. I cried when I heard about the children who lost their lives inside of that elementary school. That pulling at my heart grew even stronger. For the last two years I've said that when God calls me to do something, I'm going to do my best to listen. Two years ago God answered when I called on Him, and I will spend the rest of my life trying to do the same.

As soon as I told my husband that I felt God pulling at me to do something to help, he stood by me. The only problem was that I didn't have a clue where to start. The next day, reliving some of the emotions I went through on April 28, 2011 (the morning after I survived), I made a post on Facebook about sending gift cards to Moore Oklahoma. Then I sent an email to Holly Hollman, who wrote the two month anniversary story on my family back in 2011 when she worked for the paper. Holly now works for the city of Athens. I asked if she knew of any place that might be willing to let me set up on a Saturday and collect gift cards. Well, with God leading the way Holly secured the Athens Police Department as our drop off point. She also contacted the local media to get coverage about the gift card drive. I owe a lot to her for getting everything going. I had no idea what would happen when I sent her that email, but God knew.

I didn't know if anyone would even show up that day at the police department. We were there a few minutes before 10 to start setting up, and the first person stopped by and dropped off $100, before we even got our table set up. And people just kept coming. I set a personal goal of raising $4,027 in gift cards, in remembrance of 4-27-2011, the day I was given a second chance at life. We didn't reach the $4,027, but we have raised an incredible $2,730 so far. Two shipments of gift cards for the town of Moore.

I thank the people of North Alabama for caring so much. Every person who came out, helped touched my heart. There were other survivors from April 27 who came out. There was even a couple from Moore Oklahoma, who now live in North Alabama who stopped by to help out. To each of you who stepped up and gave from your heart, no matter the amount, THANK YOU! I thank you, and more importantly the people of Moore thank you. I've walked in their shoes so I can say that. You may think that you were doing something good for the people of Oklahoma, but what you didn't know is that you were also helping to heal me. When I see tornado damage on the news, especially the large destructive ones, it takes a part of my heart back to the day I was standing there in the rubble lost and confused. When you reached out your hand to the residents of Moore, without realizing it, you reached your hand out to me and pulled me back from the memories that haunt me.

One of the things I remember the most from two years ago is that Mother's Day was about two weeks after the tornado. One of the local churches made baskets, and church members were walking around neighborhoods giving them out. A lady came up me when she found out we were the homeowners. She held out the basket to me and told me that they were for Mother's Day. I shook my head and told her that I wasn't a mother yet. She looked at me, placed the basket in my hands, and said "Take it anyway". I will always remember that moment. For some of the residents of Moore, receiving your gift cards will be that moment for them. They may not know your names, but they will never forget you.

Two Years Later...

Today is the two year anniversary of the tornado outbreak. Same as last year it's a dreary, rainy day. We're under a severe thunderstorm watch as I type this.

We made plans a few weeks ago to clean our garage today. In the weeks after the tornado everything anyone found was put in storage containers and boxes. First it went to my brothers house and sat in his garage for three months until we bought our new house. As we moved the stuff here we went through some of it and threw away a lot of stuff. Wet sheetrock sticks better than superglue. Just trust me on that one

Of course the adventure wasn't over because over time mold set in. So, even some of the things we were able to save initially had to be thrown out. I guess sometimes it doesn't matter how quickly you get to things, once they've been rained on like that there's no hope of saving them. The rest of the stuff we recovered has been sitting in our garage since a few months after the tornado. Then, last March we had more stuff make it's way to the garage when the flooring men and painters had to move everything out of the house because of the second tornado. That meant that more stuff made it's way to the garage and less stuff made it's way back into the house.

Brandon asked if it would be too hard on me going through our stuff today. I told him that I was going to be thinking about what happened anyway today, so we might as well clean. Brandon's parents came over and helped us watch Lily and clean.

We were in Athens today before we started working on the garage and we stopped for lunch at Applebees. When we left it was starting to rain lightly outside. For some reason I was taken back two years to that moment when I was running through the neighborhood, with a blanket wrapped around me, and not another soul in sight, feeling helpless and lost. Sometimes two years seems like yesterday.

Our garage is looking a lot better. We have a few trash bags filled up now. We aren't finished, but we're a lot closer.

On a closing note for the second anniversary, sometimes you wonder if life had a soundtrack what would it be. On the afternoon of April 27, 2011 my soundtrack would have been "I Will Praise You in This Storm" by Casting Crowns. The first time I heard that song was a few weeks after the tornado. It still brings tears because the words are so literal to me. Every time I hear it I think of those moments after the tornado when I didn't know what to do. I was lost, but God took my hand and took care of me.

"Though my heart is torn, I will praise you in this storm" - Casting Crowns

Tornado Survivors Are More Confident????

I had one of those "did I REALLY just read that moments?" I saw an a headline "Tornado Survivors Become More Confident, Study Says". So, naturally I thought "Say WHAT???", and I had to read it. I've attached the link to the story below. Now, to be fair, I haven't read the actual study so I can only comment on the news article. And you know I have a couple of things to say about that.

According to the news article, the study found that people who survive a tornado don't think that a tornado will hurt them in the future and believe they have a better chance of surviving another one. Poor Brandon was next to me when I read that and got the "and just WHO did they interview?" comment. I know tornado survivors, and I've yet to hear anyone say that they feel like they can survive another one. I personally do fear that another one is coming for me. We live in Alabama. Tornadoes, unfortunately, are a part of life here. I pray it never gets bad, but the chance of another one happening isn't zero. Heck, we were hit twice in 10.5 months. My family has been through four of them, and that's just the ones that we know about.

I should point out here that the news article also lists having a flashlight as a way that people planned to protect themselves. I should have just stopped reading right there. If only I had my trusty flashlight with me on April 27, I could have protected myself from the tornado. Yeah, nice try.

I take issue with a lot of things in this article, but I came to the conclusion that this is skewed metrics at its worst. It's a classic example of sampling from a small, non-diverse group and then applying those findings to   everyone. According to the article, the subjects for the study were survivors of an April 2006 tornado in Iowa City (where the conductor of the study lived). So first, they only have survivors of one storm, meaning there's no geographic diversity. I'm sure people in the south where tornadoes are more common would have a different opinion. Second, that also means that the study paid no attention to how the rating of the tornado survived might make a difference in how people feel. That made me curious. If it was only one tornado studied and people became so confident that they could survive again, just how bad was the tornado these people survived? I survived an EF5 and I'm terrified on storms. I know other survivors who are terrified also. I looked up the tornado. It was an EF2 and there was believed to have been only one death. One death is one too many. However, I believe the study, if it was meant to be broadly applied to ALL survivors, should have found survivors of different ratings and from different areas of the country and compared how those factors affected the way people think. That would have been a much more insightful study. But, that's just my opinion.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that an EF2 isn't bad. In fact, an EF2 can destroy homes and lives. But for people to read that article and think that survivors of ALL tornadoes feel that way does a huge disservice to the actual survivors. If the people in Iowa City are more confident now, then good for them. However, please don't take a small study and broadly apply it to everyone. And if you read about studies like these please don't blindly accept them. If you want to know the truth, in the first few days after the tornado I thought that I wouldn't be scared of storms anymore. I'd survived the worst; I knew it could be done. I was high on being alive in those first few days. Then a few weeks later the first post-disaster tornado warning was issued for Limestone County at midnight. Was I confident? You tell me. I sat in the bathroom floor of my brother's house with my cat in her pet carrier, a blanket and pillow on top of my head, my daddy talking to me on my cell phone, my husband holding my hand, while I rocked back and forth crying. Surviving didn't make me more confident. It made me realize that any storm has the potential to take my life. That terrifies me. There are still people who don't take warnings seriously - and that terrifies me even more.




http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/tornado-survivors-optimistic-worst-disaster-study-iowa-city/story?id=18671072#.UWtp50rgaBB

And the mystery is solved...

So, after a few years of painful long runs, and limping for days after long races I finally know why it's happening. It wasn't the doctor who figured it out; it was the man who was fitting me for custom shoe inserts. Apparently the reason my left ankle hurts so much and swells the way it does is because my leg and my foot aren't lined up correctly. We don't know if it's a result of being born with club foot or if it's something that just happened over time. I'm leaning more to being born that way since I think I'd be in pain all of the time otherwise.

The man fitting the inserts said he thinks that with the right shoes and the right inserts we can help control what's happening to my ankle when I run. It would be great to be able to run more than 7 or 8 miles and know that I'll still be able to walk normal the next day. I'm optimistic that we can get there.

I hear so many people say that they can't run. In some cases that's true - there is a physical limitation that prevents them from running. Most of the time though the only limitation is the one that we let our brains put on ourselves. We convince ourselves that we can't do something without ever really trying. I know because I used to be that person. I was the perfect case of "I'm not running unless something is chasing me". I never knew how wrong I was. Running is one of the best things I ever did for myself. In the past 7.5 years I've ran 5 half marathons, and numerous 10k's and 5k's. I'll never be the fastest person out there, but I'm proud of what I've done. I have PRs of 1:59:58 in the half marathon, 50:12 in the 10k, and 23:33 in the 5k. And to think I did all of that on this ankle:

If I can do it, anyone can. The only bad runs are the ones you never take.

Little Blessings

There have been times in my life when I've had the opportunity to do something nice for a complete stranger knowing I would never get anything in return. In all likelihood I would never see that person again in my life. People sometimes say "God bless you" in return, and I always tell them "He already has". I used to say that before the tornado. It was true then, and it's even more true today. God has blessed me so much. There's a lot of pain that goes with the road I've walked for the past 23 months, but there's also a lot of joy simply in being alive.

We all know the old saying "it's better to give than to receive", but I think when it comes to God we have it a lot better on the receiving end. If we stop and think about what we give to God compared to what He gives to us, well, I'll be the first one to say that I wouldn't want the tables reversed. God gives us so much more than we could ever give Him. He knows we fall short of deserving his blessings, but He loves us and still blesses us anyway. Some blessings seem bigger than others, but I guess that depends on how you look at it.

Take me for example. Weeks after the tornadoes we found two of our pets alive. I can't even describe the joy I felt when I saw each of them for the first time. Some people would see it as luck that two cats survived a tornado, but I was in that tornado and I know that finding them alive was a gift from God.

Then there was my shirt from the day I was born. Back then the hospital dressed all of the children in little shirts in the nursery - blue for boys, pink for girls. Weeks after the tornado when most of the debris had been cleared, on one of my random trips by the remains of our home, I walked up onto the foundation and there was that little shirt laying on the foundation as if someone had placed it there knowing I would come by for it. I don't know who found it. I don't know where they found it. I don't know how they knew to return it to our house. It's as if it just dropped out of Heaven. I had always planned on dressing my children, if we had any girls, in that shirt when they were born. Having it returned was a blessing, and I was able to dress our daughter in that shirt for pictures when she was a few days old.

A few nights ago, my husband and I went into our garage to look through some of our stuff that's been piled in there since we moved in. After the tornado we packed up the things we thought we could salvage. Of course it rained the night of the tornado and a lot of things were wet. We lost a lot of the things we originally packed up due to mold a few months later. We thought going through what was left would be hard on us so we've been putting it off. In the first box my husband opened he pulled out a little wooden dog pull toy that I had when I was a baby. Neither of us ever saw it after the tornado. Neither of us put it in that box. We don't know if someone else found it and put it in there. All we know is that it's suddenly back with us. I actually cried when he showed it to me. To have lost the toys from my childhood that I saved for my children, and then suddenly to have one of them back is indescribable. It may not be much to some people, but at that moment it was worth more than all of the money in the world.

I have been so blessed in my life. I will continue to try to help people when I can. I want others to know how good the little blessings in life can feel. It can be as simple as opening a door for someone. Even that act of kindness can brighten someone's day. You never know what road the person you are helping has walked in life, and one day you might find yourself walking that same road.

On a different note - my husband is training for his first marathon. He's running as part of Team in Training (TNT), and raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. He received a corporate sponsorship from Pitts and Zanaty Law Firm, so his fund raising goal has been met. However, several of his team members are still trying to meet their goal. If anyone would like to donate to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to help with cancer research and to help those who are fighting blood cancers please visit one of the pages below to donate online.

http://pages.teamintraining.org/al/flypig13/aryders18j
http://pages.teamintraining.org/al/flypig13/kpudelski
http://pages.teamintraining.org/al/flypig13/spewitt6by