Pieces from the storm. Click to enlarge.
Yesterday was a difficult day. Today and the days to follow will undoubtedly prove more difficult. The severe weather that ravaged the southern United States on Wednesday is reportedly “the third deadliest outbreak since the 1930’s” according to The Weather Channel.
My sincere condolences, thoughts and prayers go out to all those that have been affected by these tornadoes and this storm system. The sheer power and resulting devastation is difficult to comprehend.
I spent the morning cleaning up minor damage and trying to absorb everything that has transpired over the last 24-36 hours. As I was outside in the yard picking up debris and appreciating – even more – the sounds of laughter from my children, I was also meditating on the lives lost and on the lives forever changed as a result. Deep in thought and dragging broken tree limbs, I walked up on a piece of wet paper stuck down in the grass. I bent down to see what it said. “We live in a world that is being…” It looked like a paragraph on being a good steward of your environment, although I cannot be entirely certain as grass and leaves were protruding through the wet page.
I looked up and began to walk all across the backyard. I found pieces of shingle and rooftops that were obviously foreign. I began to wonder how far the objects had been carried and from where they had been carried to get to here, at my feet and in my back yard. I could only imagine.
My family spent the majority of the day Wednesday like a lot of people, down in the basement without power, bracing for the next big round of storms and tornadoes. At a lull in the evening, I stood outside on the porch waiting for the next storm system to roll through when high above the trees I saw what looked like a piece of metal twisting in the sky, loosely framed by swirling leaves and debris. Today I am picking up similar debris and objects that I cannot help but question their origin. I hold in my hand pieces of someone’s home, pages from someone else’s magazine, a torn page of a book that someone, somewhere, was reading.
After Wednesday’s storms, I have found pieces of someone else’s life in my backyard.
After these storms, I have also rediscovered the fragility of life.
What have you discovered?
Holly M. Abernathy
info@6qCreative.com
Pieces from the storm. Click to enlarge.