Sunday morning after the tornado was a whirlwind of activity. Some dear friends came and tackled the the trees with chainsaws and another was scavenging for loose tin to patch our roof. Jimmy was only a week out from knee surgery, so he and I stood or sat there in a stupor and watched as these folks cut the trees from our vehicles and cut the five downed trees into small pieces.


It's all blurring together for me, but I remember Monday more friends and relatives showed up with machinery and pulled pushed and drug all the trees, downed fence and other trash to the edges of the yard. They also did this for our neighbor and I was amazed at how cheerfully they worked to help us, not expecting one thing in return.


I've never been on the receiving end of any kind of charity before. If you haven't been, you cannot begin to know how much every act of kindness means to a victim. Policemen guarded our neighborhood 24 hours a day, people drove by when the roads were cleared and brought hot meals, water, boxes of food and were always asking, "Do you need anything?" I was in a stupor. I kept my phone charged with a car charger and I got lots of messages from friends with encouraging words. I appreciated every one of them, but I did not have the energy to reply. If you sent one or left a message on voicemail, I got it and it meant so much.


One day some people from Domino's pizza came by and gave us pizzas. A television station was filming and I saw myself on tv a couple of weeks later and I looked shell-shocked. I guess I was. The only time I lost it the entire time was on Monday morning. I received a voicemail from my personnel manager telling me to get the library staff and report to the fire station to work. There is no way I could help anyone in the shape I was in. I left an incoherent message on the mayor's cell phone and Jimmy drove me to the fire station in the truck (our only working vehicle) and I just told them there's no way I could work.

I stayed home all that week and reported back the following Monday. We worked at the recreation center, the operations center for disaster relief. Then we came over to the library and worked both outside and inside the building.

My Bo friends were terribly kind to me during this time. Their generosity still amazes me.