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So many people in so many places have
been devastated by recent deadly tornadoes and floods. To them, I dedicate
these thoughts,
written in the wake of the F5 tornado
that hit the Oklahoma
City area May 3, 1999.
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Comfort Without Words
by Deborah P. Brunt |
Oklahoma City lay stunned, like a
victim of a wild-animal attack trying to rise but too mangled to do so.
Tornadoes had ripped through central Oklahoma on Monday evening, May 3. The worst,
a half-mile-wide monster, roared through southern Oklahoma City and several
nearby towns, devouring everything in its more than 60-mile path.
Our house lay on the far side of the
city from the tornado's destruction. Jerry, the girls and I spent the evening
together, preparing for the regular schedule we thought we'd face the next day
and keeping a watchful eye on the TV. Local stations gave minute-by-minute
reports of the storm's progress. But only after the girls were in bed did Jerry
and I see the first reports of the storm's devastation. We watched - and
cried.
Unable to sleep, we stayed up late and
woke up early. Our girls attend a Christian school in Del City, one of the
places hardest hit. Soon after rising, we learned their school was closed for
the day. We didn't know whether the school was still standing (it is). We
didn't know what had happened to friends who live in the devastated area. We
couldn't easily get information because many phone lines were down, others were
jammed and hundreds of people had been evacuated from annihilated neighborhoods
to hurriedly-created shelters.
Another wave of thunderstorms slowed
relief efforts through the morning. Lightning, wind, and hail heightened the
sense of catastrophe. Jerry and I spent the morning at home, unwilling to leave
our daughters alone to deal with the stormy weather and their many unanswered
questions. No one accomplished much.
When I did go to the office at noon, I
went seeking word about my co-workers. Two had lost everything. Several others
had suffered extensive property damage.
Linda had weathered the storm in our
nearly-empty six-floor office building because her house lay in the tornado's
path. She arrived home - alone - after midnight to find her house had been
spared.
Bob, his wife and several friends had
crouched under Bob's house while the tornado roared toward them. "If
you've ever prayed, pray now," Bob told the group when the storm was
almost on them. They braced, expecting it to hit. At that moment, the tornado
lifted briefly, then set down about a block south.
Kerry walked into my office wearing
ball cap askew, crumpled clothes, and a day-old beard. Not his normal business
attire. The tornado had come within feet of the home where he and his wife and
four children had huddled. They were alive, but traumatized; their
debris-covered home, still standing, but without power or
water.
Kerry left his devastated neighborhood
that morning to take three of the children to their grandparents' house. His
wife and their two-year-old stayed behind. When Kerry tried to return home, the
police wouldn't let him into his neighborhood. He came to work, not knowing
where his wife was, not knowing where he and
his family would spend the night.
Much has already been said about this
tragedy - questions asked, stories told, commentaries offered. But when I try
even to begin to put the monster into perspective, I have no words. Instead, I
recall the one thing Job's friends did right. Going to Job after he lost
everything, "they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven
nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering
was."
I
will offer tangible help to tornado victims. I may even think of some helpful
things to say. But today, I can only do as Job's friends, and as a man named
Ezekiel, whose heart broke for a devastated people. I sit among them -
overwhelmed. | |
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