[Anne] Thunderstorms

One April evening, twenty years ago, I walked upstairs with a 7 month old that I had just rocked to sleep. I went downstairs, turned on the television and was informed that a tornado had been spotted on the ground, heading exactly in our direction. I ran back up the stairs, picked up our only child, and then ran out to the shed where Husband was working. He stepped outside and immediately took us all in and secured us in a safe place. I will forever be amazed by the statement he made.

“Get down low and cover Jake. I can smell the tornado. It is here.”

Not even a second after the words came out of his mouth, the roaring, crunching and grinding of destruction was consuming us. We suddenly smelled a pungent cedar and the fainter fragrance of oaks in the air. There was a break in the time-space continuum, because while I knew that it had been just seconds, or possibly minutes, since the beginning of the tornado, it felt as if hours were going by as we listened to the world splintering.

When it ended, Husband was certain we had no upstairs. As it happened, we had only lost one window when the tree broke through it. But two blocks west of us, trees were stripped of bark and over 200 homes were levelled in what looked like a war zone.

Twenty years earlier, I left the equatorial valley that was home as our family moved to Chicago. My childhood had been spent where the seasons were wet or dry. The rain came in the wet season on a daily basis as a soft shower followed by breaking clouds and sunshine. The temperature was predictable and there were always flowers in bloom. Chicago, as we arrived in the winter, was cold and snowy.

Somehow, the snow and frigid temperatures were not what surprised me. The weather that overwhelmed me was the rain, or specifically, the thunderstorms. I had never before seen thunderclouds, lightning, or hear the deep rumble of thunder. It was astounding.

I remember sitting with my dad and brother on the back porch in every storm that passed. We watched the clouds, listened to the rain and counted the seconds between lightning and thunder. Those were wonderful moments.

The tornado failed to diminish my love and appreciation for thunderstorms. The past two weeks, just as the schools were letting out and I was sitting in a car line waiting to pick up Youngest Child, huge storms have rolled in. I rolled down the windows and craned my head out to see the billowing, boiling clouds collide. I let the fierce wind whip through the car, breathing in that wonderful smell of rain. I marveled at the jagged lines of light cutting through the clouds.

Thunderstorms were part of the marvel of America. They are big, bold, loud, and impressive. They are dark and terrifying. They are unpredictable. They are beautiful and dynamic. They are refreshing. They are completely different, and yet very similar, to soft, splattering rains.

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