Tonadoes and life

I crack jokes about tornadoes. Bragging about how tornado watching is almost like the state sport. Cameras in hand we stare at the skies capturing spectacular clouds instead of cowering in our basements.

 Disclaimer in event of an actual tornado most people are in their basements. Especially with the sky is clothed in a dangerous black and you can't see what is coming upon you.

Really though most of the time tornado watches seems like rain in Seattle. Just another tornado watch. You go on with your day and unplug the computer when the lightening starts to strike.

I used to have nightmares about tornadoes. I was scared to death of the funnel clouds that could do such vile damage.

Countless tornado watches and warnings. One time sent to the basement and we only stayed for a few minutes.

Nope I have never felt the wrath of a tornado. Sometimes the weather has been so ripe yet nothing happened. Sometimes the sun shone while just a few miles away people's homes were shredded.


 While I sip a mocha with a friend children scream on the floor of a cold bathroom and the deafening roar of the twister comes upon them. I cuddle a baby on my lap and somewhere faraway the screams are stopped forever.

And then as I sit in the local hair salon somebody checks the news on their smart phone. The school. The elementary school was hit. Pulling children out. Dead or alive we don't know.

I shiver from more then the overly zealous AC.

Homes are destroyed, but all the people care about is that their family is alive and well. Later they worry about the fact that their very personal things are strewn all over the town. For now their children are safe and nothing else matters.

Those people know something I do not. They know what it is to have nothing, but yet have the most important things in all the world.

And so it makes me wonder what really are my important priorities today?

I think people and love need to move higher up on the list...