Naturally April 27, 2011 is on my mind today. It sounds cliche to say, but it was a day that changed me forever. Some people, like my little sister, who was crouched in a bathtub under a mattress right behind Taco Casa on 15th Street, wish they could forget about it. Wish they could forget the howling winds, the screaming pipes, the shattering glass, the moaning sirens, the crunching, crashing, clacking of cars smashing together and roofs collapsing and hundred year old oaks tumbling down around them.
I don't want to forget. I don't know how to forget. I can't drive down 15th Street without remembering. Remembering what used to be there. Remembering the days that followed, when it looked like a bomb had gone off. Nubs of tree trunks still remain, looking like jagged q-tips with the cotton ripped off. I can't pass by the bowling alley without remembering pulling my car into the lot, hanging my head and sobbing because I couldn't find Terry and Larremy. The day the new McDonald's opened I couldn't help but think of all the hamburger patties littering the sidewalk after the storm. When I look at Hardee's I think of Gene Stallings, flipping burgers for volunteers. I remember the man who drove from Baton Rouge with homemade gumbo. He gave us some from under his LSU tailgating tent he set up next door to Terry's apartment complex when we were salvaging Terry's belongings. I remember going to Lowe's the day after the storm and how nice everyone there was to us. We asked if they had any car chargers to fit our cell phones, and they looked so genuinely sorry when they told us they were sold out.
I remember taking some fresh clothes from Target to a lady whose daughter was in ICU, very badly injured. We gave them to her son in the waiting room. I will never forget how grateful he was to get a bag of cheap tshirts and sweats, while his sister was in critical condition just down the hall. I cried the whole way home.
While it's painful to remember a lot of these things, it's also wonderful. It reminds me that people do want to help each other. It reminds me that little gestures can mean a lot to someone, that even if you feel like you didn't do much, you might have made someone's day. It reminds me that God answers prayers. My little sister and boyfriend were just feet from the most destructive tornado to ever hit Alabama, and they walked away without a scratch.
Just because I was fortunate enough to be in a steel framed fortress of a building, that I don't have to remember the screaming winds, the ripping, roaring, howling, crashing, smashing, tearing, doesn't mean I should just forget everything else about April 27, 2011. I can't say exactly how it changed me, but I know that it has, and that it must be part of God's plans.
Tuscaloosa is rebuilding. We are moving on, but we will never forget. We won't forget what we lost, or who we lost. We won't forget the policemen, firefighters, and National Guard who spent hours doing search and rescue work. We won't forget the volunteers, people who drove hundreds of miles or from just a block away to haul chain saws and clear debris, or donated food, clothes, water, or any of the other thousand items people needed. We won't forget that we are a community.
Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. Psalm 42:5
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