Storms

I didn't want to wake up this morning.

I dreampt about my father again. In the dream, it was winter and he was here helping me plow out the driveway with the old truck & snowplow. It's pretty obvious I'm thinking more about him since learning of my neighbor's death. It's bringing so much back. I try not to think about missing Dad, and for the most part I usually succeed. At least on the surface.

It was a tumultuous dream. The kind that makes you think you're going crazy when you finally do wake up. The ache it leaves in your heart because the one you miss isn't there, even though your mind brought them back for a few seconds during sleep. And while I was in that dream I didn't want to leave.

But I did wake up.

Not much choice, really. There are things to do in the world of the living, like the mundane acts of eating, breathing and keeping up with the chores to keep my messy life in a sort of order.

It was a strange day all around. Emotions are strung out anyway, no one to really talk about the turmoil I feel inside, and then this strange storm came along from the west filling the horizon with those gray and prussian blue leaden clouds. And the thunder! It was downright creepy. A sort of summer sound, but here at the last of October. It nearly shook the windows. With the cold wind pulling the temperatures down into the low 30's & 40's, I went outside to bring in some wood for the old stove. I could hear the thunder increasing in volume; from a dull grumble to a roar, as the sky filled much more quickly than I'd anticipated with the blackness overhead. But not finished with my job, I hurried as quickly as I could, although I couldn't avoid being suddenly startled by these sharp flashes of lightning right overhead, with pounding thunder immediately following. And being in a place entirely surrounded by 50 - 70 foot Oak trees, I was understandably nervous. As I rushed up to the house with my buckets filled with wood, the skies opened up and pelted me sharply with marble-sized hail! Crazy.

Once I was inside the house and had caught my breath, the storm continued for a few more minutes, covering the ground with a thin coating of those small ice balls, as the thunder clouds and lightning started meandering slowly off towards the southeast.

Then, within the hour, the sun came out. The icy ground cover soon melted and it was as if the storm had never happened. All was back to normal. Life goes on.

Yes, storms come and go. From rainstorms to floods, tornados to hurricaines, they blow through our little world, upsetting and sometimes overturning our lives, but then after they're gone, life all around us goes on. Or so it seems.

But like those storms, there are tragic events that forever stand out in our minds, that change things, take people away that can never be put back. And while everything around us does seem to go on as normal, it really isn't. Not to those of us who've gone through the trauma. Unlike those hailstones that melted away with the warmth of the sun, grief and the ache inside human hearts takes much longer to disappear. If ever.