A Tree Fell on Our House
We invited a bunch of people over to our house for an impromptu BBQ for the Fourth of July. They were to arrive at 4 p.m. We ended up having to cancel when the baby got one of those fast colds that seem to come from nowhere.
At 4 p.m. (when people should have been arriving) we stood in the kitchen as the wind picked up. Our house is so sturdy so it’s hard to know how fast the wind is going unless you’re outside. Since I love watching storms roll in, I went out on the front porch with the baby. I wanted her to see the beauty of it.
It didn’t take long before I became nervous. This was unusual wind moving at a pace that, at that moment, merely struck me as odd. I could not put my finger on why I felt uncomfortable, and I went inside. A few moments passed and rain started falling — thicker and harder. The whole world seemed made of rain at that moment.
I looked out the window and could see only the color grey. I could not see more than 2 feet out from the window and side of the house. I held the baby. All of my mama protective instincts came into play, and I observed that in myself as from a distance. I asked my husband if we should go downstairs.
This was not the usual summer storm — of that I was certain. I thought it might be a tornado, but we didn’t hear that train sound and the sky had not been green.
Before I could get the words completely out of my mouth, my husband yelled to get into the basement. He was standing by a window looking outside. He has never yelled at me with such a sense of urgency in his voice, so I ran into the basement. The baby, feeling how scared I was, started to cry.
By this time, the electricity was out. The baby and I stood inside the pitch black basement. No flashlights and no light from the outside. In a few moments, I went back upstairs.
I expected the house (and my husband) to be gone.
My husband once told me the story of a guy who heard a tornado coming. The guy grabbed his mother (who was in a partial body cast) and slung her over his shoulder and ran downstairs. When he opened the door of the basement, he came into the outside. The house was gone. And that is what I expected. My husband and the house were there, thank goodness. My husband said to look out the back window. All I saw was tree. Rain was still pouring down. The worst of the storm was over. The sky began to turn white from grey. We had a mighty big tree to clean up and firewood to last a year.
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