Storm memories

 

My neighbor, Susan, mopping.

In the recent devastating storms we’ve had in the Metroplex, the Alter/Burton compound has been lucky. We have survived with very little damage. When we had hail a night or two ago, I listened with worry as it pinged against the frail old  glass in the cottage windows, and I worried about the cars, particularly my soft-top VW. But all was well. Just blocks from us, at TCU and University Christian, windshields were shattered and in one instance a car top broken.

But this morning my computer popped up a memory from ten years ago, and I was taken back to a terrific spring storm that did real damage. Jacob was probably six and scared of storms, so he had slept in my bed. I am not sure if this was the time we sat in the evening and watched the rain and hail fall furiously, only later to hear that it had taken the entire roof off a building down the street. My protestations that I loved a good storm only brought forth one word from Jacob: “Why?” I couldn’t explain that as a kid in a cabin on a high ridge in the Indiana Dunes I had watched storms roll down the length of that lake and stir the water into dark, big whitecaps. Thanks to my mom’s attitude, I reveled in watching the power and was never afraid. In Texas, I have learned that a little fear might be a good thing.

But this night it must have rained hard during the night, and when I woke in the morning, I could smell wetness. It came from the back of the house, where the add-on family room has a flat roof. We were in the midst of getting the house and cottage re-roofed, and the roofers had put a tarp over the family room. I didn’t want to go back there alone, so holding Jacob’s hand, I went through the kitchen and into the family room. The wood floor was two inches deep in water, and if you stood in the middle of the room, you were rained on.

I called everyone I could think of—Jordan, our neighbors, our contractor, our roofer, and it wasn’t long before there was an army cleaning, sorting, mopping. I can still hear my neighbor (the good looking one) saying as he walked into the room, “Sweet Jesus!” and I can see Lewis, my beloved contractor, and the roofing company owner on their hands and knees sponging up water.

My cookbook collection was on top of a long bookshelf, specially built for the room. I lost all of them, including beautiful four-color coffee table books as well as books I had treasured since childhood. We were planning a special sale that afternoon of my children’s books for the parents of children at Lily B., across the street. All the children’s books were spread out on the couch—and mostly ruined. It was Jordan’s birthday, but instead of the lovely lunch we planned, she spent the day sorting wet books on the front porch, as everyone else ferried them out to her.

The long Lovesac wrap-around couch was soaked, the wood floor buckled. Fortunately, insurance covered most of it, and eventually order was restored—the floor smooth, the couch as good as new after it was sent out for a long drying process. But the books were a total loss. To me, an incredible loss.

I guess I never again felt the same about storms. But there was one funny night a year or two later when we were under severe storm warning. Jacob decided we had to go to the closet, and he kept urging me to the long closet on one side of my bedroom. When I finally went there, I saw he had a pillow and blanket for himself, an electronic game of some sort that he could play on batteries. And he had a dining chair, a flashlight, and a glass of wine for me. So we sat for a long time. When I’d ask if we could go out (I heard no thunder), he’d say, “Not yet, Juju, not yet.” It’s one of my favorite memories of his childhood.

I know with the last couple of storms this spring, friends and neighbors have suffered damage. I am grateful we’ve been spared—even the new Chinese pistache tree came through unscathed—but I worry for friends who lost so much, especially a Facebook friend with a nursery who lost a greenhouse. Storms are something we learn to live with in North Texas, and I guess we always think it wouldn’t happen to us. But it can. While I still enjoy the power and glory, I am respectful—and ever watchful.

Next time we have a storm I hope each and every one of you is safe.