I was at choir practice when I received a call from my husband saying a "tree limb" had fallen on the house and that I needed to come home. I was not prepared for the sight that greeted me. A large oak tree had been blown completely out of the ground and rammed through a corner of our house.
The tree fell on the room I used for crafts and sewing and where my husband had his desk. Fortunately, neither of us was in the room at the time. My husband was sitting in the next room, where the ceiling cracked over his head.
Needless to say, it was a mess. The sewing machine I received for Christmas when I was 13 was crushed. Bill's desk was history. And rebuilding was slow due to the fact that this house was built in 1955. Our neighbor, Ross Ables, had to scrounge for old materials and make things from scratch that could no longer be found commercially. A lovely gentleman, Stanley Mullins, hired by Ross helped me sift through the rubble and, to my delight, found a box of Christmas ornaments given to me by my mother (who had died a year and a half earlier) still intact. Nothing else in the room mattered to me as much as those ornaments did.
Fortunately, we were able to live in the part of the house that was not damaged. Chaotic and difficult as it was during those long months, it could have been much, much worse.
But, I admit, any indication of a potential hurricane still has me scrambling for supplies and looking anxiously at my trees. And, a bit selfishly, hoping it will pass me by this time.
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