Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Tornado Took Our Roof But Not Our Love

Sister Lavonda,

What can I say but "Thank You Lord" that you and your household are safe. Even this shall pass.

Nkolika

From: adeyemi bukola oyeniyi <oyeniyib@gmail.com>
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, June 3, 2013 11:34 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Tornado Took Our Roof But Not Our Love

Dear Sister,
Sweet are the uses of adversity, so goes the old literary lines. Sometimes in the midst of storm or in the midst of quietness, we are brought to see what we have been oddly blind to.

I rejoice with you for the gift of life and the courage even to share this. Regards to your son. I salute his courage, devotion and coolness of nerves when all else appear failed.
Oyeniyi

On 3 Jun 2013 12:09, "La Vonda R. Staples" <lrstaples@gmail.com> wrote:

MONDAY, JUNE 3, 2013

The Tornado Took Our Roof But Not Our Love

On May 31, 2013 I was sitting at my computer chair.  It was about eight p.m. and my daughter and her father had just left.  Sarah was going to be dropped off for the weekend at the home of the Thompson's.  My son Grant had also left the apartment.  He went to escort Liz, the young lady who has been helping me since I have been diagnosed with complex cancer, to the bus stop and then out to whatever he planned to do.

I was sitting in my chair with everything I needed for a comfortable night.  The apartment was clean.  So was I.  My head was full of writing ideas and my bowl was full of apple pie.  Everything in place for solitude and I don't know how I didn't know that it was going to be, at the least, shattered just a little bit.

I never listen to the weather report.  What can I do about it anyway?  With my illness the only time I leave the house is on Monday when I go to chemotherapy at Barnes for about seven hours.  This has changed.  I believe that there is no longer any such thing as the same.

Grant came running into the house and I almost got angry.  Liz was close behind him.  He grabbed the phone and told me to go to the basement.  I ignored him.  I kept eating my pie.  "The police told us to take cover mom, go downstairs."  Still, I ignored him and really didn't listen to him as he told his stepfather to come back to the house.  Grant went downstairs.  I stayed upstairs.  I think the power went out and I stood up to walk to the basement.  At that moment, when I looked down the short hallway I saw Grant.  And then there was something that I still don't know what to make of, process, or even summon the words to tell you artistically.

My body was pushed to the floor by some kind of force.  I heard a huge crash against the side of the apartment.  Grant was moving towards me.  I felt like I was being stabbed in my right breast and that the fiend was twisting the knife.  Another crash and then a sound no different from a bass moan emitted from the very throat of hell itself.  The apartment was fighting back!  It was being torn apart.  I tried to stand back up and I noticed that I still had the bowl of apple pie in my hand.  And then there was pitch black in all of the world as several things descended upon me at the same time.  One was not a thing.  It was a person.  It was Grant.  My son was on top of me holding me down.  I was screaming because I felt the surgically implanted IV port being twisted in my chest.  Another crash.  Sparks from somewhere.  A gust of wind deposited debris all over the bedroom, the hallway, and a gust of hot and stinging air encased our bodies.  We wouldn't know it until later but we were now covered in asbestos from the attic insulation.

I started to crawl with Grant on my back.  We were both crawling together but on top of each other.  By now the pie was out of my hand.  When we had moved six painful feet into the kitchen I stood up.  My body hurt so bad.  My eyes were wild, I know it.  I could feel the mania unhinging my senses.  I looked outside and there was nothing but black, swirling, sparks, pitch black, and more fear but I couldn't move.  A tree or pole could have come through and impaled me through the face.  I couldn't move.  Grant grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into the basement.

Mania again.  I realized my Sarah and her father were on the road in this prelude to armageddon!  I started to scream.  I called her name.  I begged God, "not like this Jesus, not like this!"  I screamed until my throat was raw or until the next shock came.  Glass flew everywhere but some landed on Liz.  She had followed Grant's directions and stayed statue like in the middle of the basement.  She couldn't even duck when the awning from the front of the house was torn off and thrown through the basement window.

As the water started to pour into the basement from the foundation and the broken window I almost started to calm down.  I tried to get my breath.  I tried to be of use to my son.  All efforts came to nothing when I realized my lungs were filling with gas.  I smelled petrol or oil.  I was trapped in a basement with no way out except for one door and a blocked window.  One of the other windows was planted next to the electrical box and the water was everywhere.  Electrocution?  Gassed to death?  Crushed by the weight of the house upstairs?  Everyone talks about being calm under fire.  I cannot even broach that discussion.  Grant tried to force me into a place next to a wall.  That space was bordered by some tires and the hot water heater.  I'm a burn victim and there was no way I was going to sit with my face next to a gas fueled hot water tank.  More screaming brought Grant's hands around my body.  He was shaking me.  There was also more to come from the storm.

I looked at the windows and saw an orange glow.  I heard the sirens.  The water wasn't a weak stream.  It was as if our basement was now a bathtub.  Where in the world did all of that water come from?  I moved towards the steps again.  I kept thinking about being buried alive.  I wanted to run away from the possibility and the thought.  Grant was trying to shut off the gas.  Liz was frozen.  Somehow, some way, Grant got a cellphone signal.  He talked to his stepfather but I do not know what was said.  All that registered was that Sarah was safe.  Sarah was safe.  Sarah was safe.  I misheard the next part.  I thought Brian was taking shelter on the road.  I started to scream again.  We would have to stay and wait for rescue from strangers.

The gas smell intensified!  I couldn't breathe.  Liz and I were choking.  Grant went upstairs for something.  I saw him walk up those ten stairs and it was like I was being left on another planet and in another world.  I followed him but once again, the sights outside the window froze my psyche.  And once again he came back for me to drag me along.  Liz and I followed Grant and all three pairs of eyes saw the police lights which made Grant run to the front door and out of that door.  I moved towards him and saw him running through that storm but the police didn't stop.  I heard him say, "stop" or "come on" or something.

And then, ten minutes after the initial assault I was back at the front door.  I opened the screen door and there was nothing between me and the storm.  Grant was in the street and I started to yell his name and to scream about the gas which was just as much a part of the air as the oxygen itself.  I couldn't go.  I couldn't stay.  I didn't want to be blown up in the house.  I didn't want to be taken by the storm outside of the house.

And then there was Brian.  He had driven through the tornado.  He hadn't stopped.  He hadn't taken shelter. He hadn't been stopped.  Brian was there.  I saw the vehicle but I couldn't move.  Liz was frozen behind me.  She couldn't move.  I heard Grant say, "come on mom!"  For some reason I turned, went back into the house, and got my purse as if it was any other day,  outing or trip to the drug store.  Liz followed me, I think.  We walked out of that apartment, ran across the yard, Brian had the door open to the SUV.  I got in the back seat.  Grant continued to do what his instincts told him to do.  His entrance into the house drove me to screams again.  I screamed his name over and over.  He came out with my medicines.   After they handed me the bottles they both went back into the house.  Liz was breathing.  Sitting next to me.  I couldn't scream anymore.  After a lifetime Grant and Brian came out of the apartment.  And as the rain and wind continued to throw their weight around we drove down the tree-lined street.

I don't remember how we got to my mother's house.  I only know that we're here.  I didn't know the extent of the damage until the next day.  I didn't know the extent of my son's devotion for me until the storm.  Brian arriving was the living proof that fairy tales are based in truth.

We are safe.  We are homeless.  The tornado peeled open our home and exposed all of its contents.  It took whatever it wanted except for what it could not have.  It revealed our love.

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