Sometimes, All You Have to Offer is a Hug

Recently, I had to take iWof to the ER. He is fine, I only mentioned it to explain why I was at the emergency room.

While we were waiting, I went to the ladies room. As I was washing my hands there was a lady in a motorized wheel chair trying to wash her hands. She could barely get her chair close enough to turn on the water despite the ADA handles on the faucet. She reached for the soap, which was mounted about head high to an average height woman. I noticed her trying to balance her belongings on her lap while trying to reach the impossibly high soap dispenser.

Naturally, I walked over and offered assistance by pressing on the pump at the top of the dispenser. She thanked me for the help and then said something heart stopping. ‘You have no idea how hard it is [to be in this condition], I think it’s just time for me to go.’

I said, ‘NO. Don’t think like that. These things aren’t in the right place.’

She said, ‘You have no idea, nobody does.’ And she began sobbing. Then she reached for the paper towels. They were mounted over the counter at the end of the sinks. Even I had trouble reaching them as I wedged myself between the trash can and the counter to get as close as I could without getting wet from water splashed on the sink. The lady thanked me again and I got her some tissue, my heart was breaking. She was crying and dabbing at her eyes and I just couldn’t help myself. I’m not a touchy feely person. I struggle when people I don’t know well get in my personal space. But this woman needed a connection. Even in my total obliviousness I sensed her need. So I put my arm around her and patted her shoulder. I felt helpless. Useless. I wanted to comfort her, but didn’t know how to make that connection.

I said, ‘Can I get someone for you? What can I do to help?’

She said, ‘No, no, there isn’t anyone, I just need to die.’ Then she began sobbing so hard her whole body was shaking.

My heart completely broken, all my barriers down, I leaned over and gave that woman a two armed hug. I stroked her hair, leaned my cheek against her head, patted her back and babbled senseless soothing words. She just let it all out while I hugged her. She had a complete and humiliating melt down. And the only thing I could do to help her was just hug her and try to convey that though I couldn’t imagine what it was like to be in her situation, I understood the emotional pain.

When her sobs began to subside, she began to thank me and bless me. I tried to tell her it was nothing. But she said that wasn’t true. Then I realized I had left iWof unattended for quite a while and was worried. So I told the lady I had to go take care of my husband and asked her if she would be okay. She said yes, she would be fine, I should go, and then she said she would say a prayer for me.

I thanked her and left the restroom.

Hours, stress and drama later I had completely forgotten the incident as we wheeled iWof out to the car. The recovery nurse that they called in to take iWof’s case said, ‘Somebody is waving at you.’

I turned and looked through the glass and the lady from the restroom was wheeled up to the window. She mouthed, ‘Is everything okay?’

I nodded yes and gave her the universal A-okay sign with my thumb and forefinger. She was smiling and looked much better.

Later I wondered if I should have gone back in to get her name and find out her story. But it was 2:30 AM, iWof was heavily drugged and I didn’t feel it would be responsible to leave him alone at the time. Though I didn’t go back, I won’t forget her. I hope she gets what she needs. Maybe all she needed was a hug.

A Grim Look of Determination.

It's really heart wrenching. Over and over and over. We go home, life is normal. We do laundry, take a swim, check email, cut the grass. Life is normal. You forget for a little while, start to relax, smile, make a joke.

But then you have to run an errand so you get in the car. A few blocks away you turn the corner into the cliched war zone. Your heart sinks. Everything comes back in a rush.

Everywhere you look is devastation, people's lives, their sanctuary, their private refuge open like doll houses where every passerby can peer in to see what once was the interior of their home. And those are just the houses on the perimeter with walls that are still standing. It is breath taking. Even if you are just bisecting the damage zone on your way from the north to the south of town you can't help but cringe at the piles of rubble.

I long for the day when I can arrive at work without a knot in my stomach and my throat burning as I fight the urge to sob. It isn't my place to sob. My home still stands. My vehicle was safely tucked in it's garage stall. I still have a workplace. I am one of the fortunate.

But I greatly admire those in the heart of Joplin who have risen from the rubble and began salvaging what they could recover and are moving forward with a grim look of determination. It is the look that has been on nearly every face for the past three weeks. Three weeks? Has it been that long already?

May 22, 2011 was a pivotal day for this community. We will never be the same. But I see the determination in the faces of my friends and neighbors to trudge forward and make this an even better place than it was before dinner time on that fateful Sunday.

I'm proud of our community. I'm grateful for all of the wonderful people from other communities who rushed to our aid in our time of need. I'm astounded by the outpouring of help, both physical and monetary. My faith in humankind is somewhat restored.

As we grimly pick up the pieces and move ahead I hope we can maintain the overwhelming sense of love and community that has been flowing like a ribbon from one heart to the next since this disaster. I hope we all will retain the feeling of what is important; life, love, community.

A time will come when we will mention recent catastrophic events; The Oklahoma City Bombing, The World Trade Center Bombing (9/11), Hurricane Katrina, The Joplin Tornado. We will all always remember what we were doing when these events occurred. For some it will shape the remainder of their lives. It was a pivotal event. Even MY perceptions have changed. And long after tears are replaced by smiles I will never forget that grim look of determination.


Sent from my iPad

Life Turns on a Dime

5:15 PM, Sunday, May 22, 2011. I’m going to tell you how bad my life sucks. So bad that I am sitting next to the pool listening to thunder roll in the distance and Buckcherry. Lightening is beginning to crack off to the West. But I’m safe under the covered porch that runs nearly the length of the back of my house. In a thunderstorm you can often find me sitting back here watching the rain on the lake. Warm summer rains are my favorite. It soothes the cracks in my battered soul.

You might be thinking, HeyNey, that doesn’t sound like it sucks too badly. It doesn’t. But I worked my ass off and went through a lot to get here. Besides, the sucks part was tongue in cheek anyway. Nobody has a perfect life, but you do the best you can with what you have.

Some of my family members are going through a really tough time right now. It makes me really appreciate what I have and relieved that I’ve always planned for rainy days. But then, I’ve passed up some risky ventures that in hindsight would have really paid off.  And then this life would really suck comparatively speaking. Oh well. I could easily sit here for hours thinking about what if. And I would still be sitting in this chair rocking back and forth listening to thunder and Buckcherry at the end of my musings.

It has started to sprinkle. The thunder has really started to get with it. The light show has so far been lame.

Okay, I take that back.

I just remembered I have tea steeping on the stove. Hang on a second.

Thunderstorms take me to a higher level of existence. The smell of ozone, the fresh breeze, the frogs chirping. Currently, the thunder isn’t coming in cracks. It is a constant roll that hasn’t abated for 60 or so seconds. And the sky is green. But I’m not dashing inside and crawling into the bathtub unless the frogs and birds suddenly grow silent. And still the thunder rolls. It is bordering on creepy. Large drops are occasionally making ripples in the pool. But the wind has suddenly died. Precurser to the big kahuna? Quite likely. And still the thunder rolls. It hasn’t let up for several minutes.

I guess the fishermen, who for some idiotic reason think the lake shore is a parking lot, are fair-weather because they have vamoosed. Well there are the tornado sirens. Hang tight.

*****************************************

6:30 PM, Sunday, May 22, 2011. I wrote all of the above just before the tornado hit town.

When the sirens went off iWof came out and told me to move my block rocker inside and put on some shoes. He also suggested that I get off the laptop and take it inside. Then he went in and turned on the television to watch the weather. I grabbed the portable kennel, flashlight and some sweats and put it all by the door to the garage. iWof went to the garage and moved all the junk off the crawl space access. He again suggested that I put on some clothes. I was (and still am) in my swimsuit. We were standing on the back porch watching the clouds the second time the sirens went off. There wasn’t a lot of wind, but it was hailing occasional huge chunks. One hit the shed and broke into 5 pieces. iWof went in the house then came back out to say he was taking the dogs and going under the house. He opened a window on the front and back of the house, then went out to the garage. I pulled on my sweats and helped him get two very uncooperative dogs in the dog satchel. During our struggle we decided that we would come up with an alternative plan for next time because had we been in the direct line of a tornado we would have died trying to get those dogs to keep their head down so we could zip the satchel. I asked him what made him to decide to go down there and he said the TV said there was a tornado in Joplin. I looked out the garage door and there wasn’t a lot of wind, just a little hail. A 2 by 3 inch hailstone landed outside of the door, so I shut the door and went in to check the TV. It was off the air. Still is. We don’t have cable or internet. But we have electricity. Nobody South of 7^th street has power. We had no clue.

I watched out the south door of my garage while it rained heavily and hailed some. The sky was green to the South, but you couldn’t see more than just a wall of rain. The wind was blowing a bit, but nothing like it often does when a storm rolls across the lake. There just never was enough wind to make me actually jump into the crawl space with iWof and the pups. I was looking out the door when there were two loud explosions, a half second apart, to the West-South-West of the house. It wasn’t thunder or lightening, something exploded. That made me shut the door and consider jumping down into the crawl space, the dark, tight, musty, creepy, crawl space.

Okay, I will admit to being claustrophobic, and afraid of snakes. If there had been more wind, I would have forgotten my phobias and jumped into the concrete hole. But there was way more wind a few years ago when I saw the pool cover sucked up like a balloon and then sucked back down until it was concave. And the covers to the skimmers popped up and spun around like frisbees. This is a safety cover that is held taught by around 30 springs stronger than a car hood spring. That was right before a section of my fence blew out. So the little dab of wind blowing Sunday didn’t concern me.

From what I can tell the worse damage is from about 13^th to 28^th streets. From what I can gather the funnel touched down just West of Schiffendecker in the Iron Gates community and ripped East down 20th street.

I’ve heard that Home Depot is gone, Hobby Lobby is gone. But I can’t confirm these things because you can’t get there from here. My mom called saying nobody could reach Aunt #2 so we drove over there to see if they were okay. They had been at church and had a tough time getting home. Aunt # 2 said there are a lot of semi-trucks on their side out by where I work.  We saw one fire station where the building and trucks were a total loss. A coworker sent a text and said our main building at work lost some windows but was otherwise okay. Another building on the campus lost its roof. Just getting to work tomorrow might be a challenge.

We heard one hospital in town was heavily damaged. Then later I received a text that said my Aunt #5’s office building was leveled. It is on the same campus as the hospital. My friend TSS is a nursing instructor. She sent me a note that said they were calling in all medical personnel because of the massive number of injuries. Faces blown off, lots of screaming, she said. She was headed to the mobile command center to see what she could do to help. I’m praying for her, she is going to have a long night.

In my life time, a tornado has never ripped through the center of Joplin. When I was a child a tornado ripped down the interstate and did damage South of 32^nd street. In the last decade several have gone North of town and a big one went South of town three years ago on Mother’s day weekend. But generally speaking, the most severe of the storms that hit the area run along Interstate 44. On the South end of town. I live on the North end. On a lake. Near a creek. In a valley. I always thought that would keep me safe. Now I know it was a false sense of security.

So life. Can turn on a dime. One minute I am watching the rain and thinking of what if and the next I am thanking the Lord for taking care of me and mine while praying for the lives of neighbors halfway across town.

Update: this was written on May 22, 2011 but I haven’t had an internet connection for the past week.

Update: once I got internet back, I forgot to actually upload the post. Sorry.

Would you buy this book? v4.0

Have you ever really taken a good look at the people around you? The people you see every day. People you think you know. Have you taken a close look at people who pass you by in the parking lot of the department store? Have you ever wondered about that knowing smile people sometimes give you as you meet them in the aisle?

I do. Now.

But I didn't always. That was before, back when I didn't know about the people that live and work around us every day, that aren't quite like us. They look like us. They act like us, for the most part. But they are significantly different in ways that might make you wet down your leg the next time you are alone after dark and hear a strange noise.

It all started on a seemingly normal, boring day, back when I still had boring days. I was driving to work after lunch. Okay, sure, I live too far from work to drive home for lunch and I drive a gas guzzler. But I suffer from separation anxiety. Severely. And that's really minor compared to the anxiety I've been suffering lately.

You see, I was going through the intersection at 4^th and Florida and was nearly plowed by a delivery truck that was running the light. But in a moment of absolute clarity I noticed the truck barreling toward me and stomped on the gas to avoid the collision. The truck driver noticed me at the same moment. Turns out there was a pretty blond walking her dog down the sidewalk. She was much more interesting than the traffic light.

Where do you think that clarity came from? I didn't know then, I just thought my guardian angel saved me. Turns out I was right. You see, good and not necessarily good and absolutely evil are at war all around us and we are totally oblivious. Personally, I liked it better when I was one of the unaware.

For example: you know that seemingly innocuous door at the bio-resource center where you donate plasma? The one you assume leads to the janitor closet or supply room. Never assume. Because you know what that does. That door might as well be labeled 'Way Beyond'. Because what goes on in the rooms where that door leads is way beyond anything I ever imagined. And that is just the beginning of the things I've learned since I am no longer among the oblivious.

And the truck driver? He wasn't really a truck driver. And the truck? It wasn't really a delivery truck. In the back of the truck were armed warriors and a prisoner who falls under the absolutely evil category that I mentioned.

Unfortunately, my moment of clarity was the 'not really a truck driver' pushing my brain to react in a way that would avoid the accident. He couldn't afford for an accident to allow that prisoner to escape. So he did something that was really in the gray area as far as the rules are concerned. And that was the end of his interest in me. But that sudden mental clarity caused me to be wide open for a second. And during that second, I caught the attention of one of the warriors. One who became obsessed with me and my well being. It also caught the attention of the prisoner. And that prisoner is the protagonist in this little story. So try and keep up, because things are going to get really weird. And scary, if you aren't into things that go bump in the night.