Blown away

Posted by Marc Hodak on January 8, 2008 under Patterns without intention | Comments are off for this article

That’s what happened this evening to the farm we were at a couple weeks ago. The Marshfield home of my mother-in-law, Rose, was struck by a tornado. Thank goodness, she got away without a scratch, having spent the ordeal in her basement, emerging to a group of emergency workers checking out her badly damaged home. All of her other buildings and yard trees are gone.

Marshfield has endured tornadoes before, but it’s still a shock when it strikes your own home. Somehow, her brother’s farm across the road survived intact, so she has a convenient place to stay until she can survey the damage tomorrow morning. Her nephews and nieces, my wife’s grown cousins, will be there ready to help at daybreak. My wife will be out there soon enough.

Everyone who knows Rose is confident that she will be just fine, despite the destruction. This lady grew up in hard times. She has carefully maintained her health, finances, and relationships in precisely the way that would enable one to weather such a storm. For example, she had just completed an addition to the back of her house when we were there over Christmas. Now, if it were me, I would have gotten around to calling my insurance agent to update my homeowner’s policy by, oh…September. Rose had already gotten hers updated last week. That brand new addition is, as they say, gone with the wind, but what’s a poor claim adjuster to do? Check her phone records for any calls to Zeus?

Yea, she’s gonna be fine.