Blowin' in the Wind

It's been a wild and raucous spring weather-wise across the country. Lines of storms brought damage close to home yesterday and today.

My dad called tonight to chat about the Joplin, MO tornado that demolished a huge swath of town. He mentioned that my uncle posted some news to his Facebook page:

Nana's house apparently gone in Joplin tornado. St Johns Hospital was at West 26th and Maiden Lane and the high school was at East 20th and Wisconsin. Both were destroyed by tornado. Nana's house at 2118 Pennsylvania was right between those sites. Another part of our heritage gone.
Nana was their grandmother, my great-grandmother. She wasn't in the house, having passed before I had the chance to know her.

"Daddy, why did the tree fall down?"
The wind was really strong today.
"Was it a tornado?"
No, bud. Not a tornado. Just really strong winds.
"At school today, daddy, I looked outside and I saw the clouds moving and I told everyone it was going to rain, but it wasn't going to be a tornado. Alex and I thought the lights were going off. Did the wind blow trees down at my school, daddy?"
No, bud. Remember, we looked around as we were leaving?
"Yeah. I knew it was going to storm. We got to play outside in the morning, but in the gym this afternoon. Some days are just like that."

My parents were out on the town and I was in charge, my sister being 6.5 years my junior. All was well. I'm sure I made her a gourmet dinner, allowed her to watch her favorite shows, read her a favorite story or two, sang some songs...typical perfect big brother type stuff.

Unfortunately, a strong line of thunderstorms ruined our perfect evening, sending us, armed with every pillow we could find, into the bathtub while, outside, warning sirens tussled with the rumbling thunder in the humid night air. We huddled in the tub, the noises outside ranging from hail to torrential downpour to roaring train. Once the storm subsided, we emerged and ventured a glance outside, finding a landscape littered with the limbs of the neighborhood cottonwood trees. In that pre-everyone's-got-a-cell phone age, my parents rushed to get information about our safety as word got out about the storm damage throughout our little slice of suburban Dallas. Neighbors emerged from their homes and began working to clear debris from the roadways and yards, all of us feeling fortunate to not bear witness to greater damage.

It's the same feeling I had as the boys and I looked at the tangled mass of broken limbs that now litter a section of our common ground.
As the boys and I looked at the downed cottonwood tree I was flooded with memories of being home alone with my sister one spring Texas night. We've survived the rounds of storms unscathed, but today, watched a gust front tear through and take down a couple cottonwood trees in our common ground, a safe enough distance from any homes. After dinner, the boys and I walked over to take a look at the damage...