"This is still the place that we all call home."

I'm supposed to be writing for the other blog on which I am a guest blogger, but all I can think about is Moore, Oklahoma.

***

We had all of our students in the designated "safe rooms" as the sirens started going off outside.  No matter how many times we conduct tornado drills at school, no one is ever prepared for the real thing.  Students were in tears, heads buried in their teachers' stomachs.  Parents frantically tried to check out their children and beat the storm home.  In the safe rooms, teachers read books aloud to ears that were only moderately listening.

After an hour or so, the teachers ran out of tricks, and the storm ran out of strength.  It had just missed us by about three miles.  I work on the north end of Norman, and the tornado was, at one point, forecasted to run straight down our road.  As parents walked their children out the doors and to the safety of their homes, I noticed everyone holding their loved ones a little closer.  Meanwhile, I worried about our own little one, who lives inside of Birth Mom's belly somewhere in the OKC area.  In the words of my friend, Katherine, "I'm sure this is just the start of a lifetime of worrying about your little ones."  (Baby and Birth Mom are fine, by the way.)

I came home to a house without power, Internet, and cable, so I didn't fully understand the devastation that had occurred just north of us until I saw pictures hours later...and slowly started receiving those sickening text messages from friends:

"We are fine.  House is gone."

***

Then, suddenly, it didn't matter that the laundry wasn't folded, that I had missed my workout, and that there were dishes piled in the sink.  It didn't even matter that my husband's car had gotten slammed with golf-ball-sized hail in the storm while he was at work.  In that moment, I was simultaneously thankful beyond measure and infinitely heartbroken.  Tragedies truly have a way of putting "the urgent" in perspective.

I can't imagine what it must be like to have every conceivable blessing in one moment and have it all taken away in the next.  I felt guilty for going on with my normal life today when, just a couple of miles away, so many couldn't.  Tornadoes are part of ordinary life in Oklahoma during the springtime, but no one ever expects this.  The news reporters said over and over, "This is the worst case scenario."  

In viewing the rubble and utter destruction over the past day, I have been reduced to tears at times.  Even so, I have never been prouder to be an Oklahoman.

I was born in Texas but came here seven years ago to begin college at the University of Oklahoma.  This place is my home now, and I can honestly say that in all my life, I have never met kinder Americans than the ones who live here.

Every state has its faults, but Oklahoma is still defined by people who say "Yes ma'am," who understand hospitality, who recite the Pledge of Allegiance in school and who, most importantly, help each other in times of need.

I remember going to New Orleans about two years after Hurricane Katrina hit.  The lower ninth ward still looked, in places, as though it hadn't been touched.  Everyone had taken care of themselves and left.  The cleanup here will take months, I am sure, but not for lack of effort by local people stepping up to contribute.  Target was picked clean of diapers and bottled water today because so many people had already bought those supplies to donate.  The Red Cross had to turn away volunteers from three different sessions.  Our gym's weight room was filled with truckloads of items to be taken to the local shelter.

Everyone is doing something.  That's just how Oklahomans are.  When tragedy strikes, people step in.

I'll close with this story that I heard from a friend:

A woman and her husband huddled in a closet with their three babies as the tornado drew closer and closer to their house.  They cried, panicked, and prayed to Jesus as loud as they could to save them.  When the storm had passed, all five family members walked out of the only room still standing in the house, without a scratch.  Beams had pierced through the walls of the closet and all.  The only thing left on a wall?  A cross that says, "Faith."  

At the end of the day, after all of the volunteers have left and the donations have dwindled, that is all we have to hold us together.