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After the Storm

Over 50 tornadoes swept through North Carolina on Saturday afternoon. Several houses in a neighborhood not four miles from our house were destroyed. People are not being allowed back in to check on their pets. We didn't even lose a shingle or a tree branch. I don't know why.





In a mobile home park outside Raleigh, a 3-month-old baby was swept from his uncle's arms when the tornado hit; the baby was found, unhurt, under a pile of rubble about 30 minutes later. Three other children in the same park did not survive. I don't know why.





"Do you feel lucky?" a reporter asked a man whose house remained standing when others around it had fallen. "No, I'm not lucky," the man replied. "I'm blessed."





I prefer to think of it as luck, honestly. At the end of the storm, I still had my house and my husband and my two children (one in a pretty dress mugging for the camera, one in mismatched clothes refusing to smile) -- but if that makes me blessed, does it make those who lost everything cursed? I don't like thinking that way. That is to say: I count my blessings and thank God for them, but I refuse to take it personally.

I'm lucky. I'm glad.



Comments

Karen said…
Tornadoes are funny/weird like that. Glad that all of you are OK - whether it's because you are lucky or blessed or just in the right place!
12:25 PM
aimee said…
I'm very glad you are okay too. I agree...count our blessings, but that is luck because I hate to think the others aren't blessed too.
2:21 PM
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