Nature is a powerful thing

The town where my brother and sis-in-law live, Smoke and Kris I'll call them, was hit by a massive tornado last night. They live in Jackson, TN - a town that has truly suffered it's share of heartbreak at the hands of one of nature's most destructive forces. Luckily Smoke and Kris are fine and their house sustained no damage. They went further south of the city to stay with Kris' parents - all the damage was on the north end of the city.

This is the second time (or maybe third time) that our family has been closely affected by a tornado. You'd think that being from Tennessee would somehow make you immune to that, but no.

Whenever we have bad weather this time of year, I always fret a little bit. I remember 1993 and the tornadoes that ripped straight through the state of Tennessee. I was in college and we were all piled into the basements of our dorms as the storms screamed through with their anger. I had called my parents (as I always did on Sundays) to check in and to tell them that I wouldn't be able to call back for a while because we were heading down to the basement. Once our ordeal was over, I called my parents back and got no answer. I started shaking...I knew my Mom wouldn't go anywhere...she'd wait for my call, to know I was safe. I called and called and called and called. As soon as the answering machine picked up, I'd hang up and call back. It seemed like an eternity passed, but realistically it had to have been only 15 min. Smoke finally answered the phone and after I ripped him a new one for not being around to answer my call, he started telling me the names of all our neighbors whose homes were either laid flat or partially destroyed. By the grace of God our home was spared - although my Mom would have told you that she wished the trees had landed a little closer to the house and had taken out our deck so she could have gotten a new one. Ha!

What came two weeks after those tornadoes lives in an equal amount of infamy in our family. Two weeks after those storms we had 2 FEET of SNOW at our house. It was my spring break from college and we were snowed in from Saturday through Thursday. You had never seen a family with cabin fever so strong. We were ready to gnaw off limbs to get out of the house.

Anyway....whenever we get storms this strong during this time of year....I always laugh and think, well, I guess the snow's a coming.