Day 115 in a Year of my Life

Post Traumatic Stress UGH!

This afternoon, we could see it coming - it was the biggest blackest ugliest sky and it took it's time getting here, but the wind hit really suddenly and we could see the tarps on other houses billowing like sails on a yacht and we could hear tin rattling like a roof or a fence or another shed was about to blow.

Honestly, my heart was in my mouth and I held my breath and I tried to keep busy (I was in the middle of packing at the time and was choosing my jewellery), but when I walked out to the lounge room and Adoring Husband was sitting frozen on the couch staring out the window with this glazed look in his eyes and his whole body was trembling (the symptoms of Parkinsons are exacerbated by stress), I knew I had to do something.

So I closed the blinds on the windows so that we couldn't see outside and the TV volume was already loud enough to drown out the sound of the wind and rain, so that we could barely hear what was happening outside.

All three psychotic dogs were inside with us.  One was on Adoring Husband's lap and the other two were with me.

We sat on the couch together and I swear every one of my senses was peaking.  It took every ounce of my strength and will to NOT cry.  A couple of times, my eyes welled up, but I forced the tears back down and we sat in silence praying for it to end without incident.

We were especially fearful because the Structural Engineer found a weak spot in our garage yesterday and he said that a strong wind could lift that whole corner of the house.  We had arranged for the 'make safe' guy to come out and make it safe, but he hadn't been able to get to us before this storm.

We sat there pleading with all of the Gods and Powers to let the house survive this storm.

It was the longest twenty minutes of my life.

I thought of everybody else in town and wondered how many of them were also cowering in their lounge rooms praying for the wind to stop.

The feeling of relief when the wind finally died was overwhelming.  Even though the wind had stopped, the rain was still quite heavy for a while afterwards, but I didn't care about the rain ... the wind is the killer for me.

When it was over, we got the phone call from the 'make safe' guy and he was out within the hour.

That corner of the house is now as safe as it can be, in it's current state of disrepair.  Thank goodness.

Soon the rain stopped, the cloud dispersed and there was blue sky and sunshine for the first time in days.  We could still hear thunder in the distance and there was very black cloud out to the West, but it was moving away from us, not coming toward us.

I'm thinking that this is going to be a long, slow healing process and I can't see there being much fun or enjoyment in it.

So today, I am grateful to have survived our first post-tornado storm.  A little shaken up, but still in one piece.  All I ask is that these storms are few and far between.

Nite all.