Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Tornadoes and Friends

Yesterday I was glued to the tv, watching the progress of the three major tornadoes that wreaked havoc on my little corner of the world. I am not a big fan of viewing live devastation, but these things were headed for me at various times and I wanted to know if I needed to get out of the way. I was one of the lucky ones yesterday. The tornadoes came close, but not close enough to hurt me or damage my home. Others were not so fortunate; several people lost their lives, many more people lost their homes. Oklahomans are a resilient bunch. We help each other, and we rebuild lives and property. We love the land and we love our state. (Oklahoma has some terrible things wrong with it, and change is needed, but we all agree that we help our neighbors in times of need.)

In the midst of this tv vigil, my phone rang and it was Yvonne Streeter, a crazy quilting friend from Texas. She was driving up Interstate 35 and found herself in my city just as the storms were coming in from the west. Since I live a good three hours from her and she was on a very long drive to Nebraska to see her mom, it was kind of an amazing coincidence that she was just a few miles from my house when she realized that she should get off the highway. She came over, we watched the storm together on tv, and my husband cooked dinner for all of us. It was such a nice thing to be able to provide, literally, shelter from the storm for a friend. When the storms had passed, we calmed down enough to stitch on our crazy quilts, and Yvonne spent the night in our guestroom before resuming her trip this morning.

I feel doubly grateful today that we were spared the horrors of the tornadoes at my house, and that I had a friend with me while the storm raged.