Out of My Hands

I am actually posting two days in a row!! Today started out so beautiful-blue skies and sunshine. I even text messaged my husband to comment about it! You have got to love Oklahoma, right?? The next thing I know, the skies are dark and our sirens are going off. I called David because he is usually pretty informed when it comes to the weather. He didn't really know exactly what was going on either. My mom called and reminded me about the fact that my building (she owns it) DOES have a basement. The funny thing is, I didn't even THINK about what I was going to do. All I thought about was "where is this stupid tornado and is it anywhere near my children?" I found out where it was and found out, yes, it was very close to both of my children. Ethan was at Charles Haskell off of 150th between Penn and Western (a tornado touched down briefly at 150th and Penn knocking down power lines) and my daughter was at Danforth and Kelly. (A tornado touched down just west of there.) We knew the Edmond Schools had been "locked down" and were not releasing any kids. David talked to Connie right as she was throwing the babies into the bathroom with blankets and pillows. She basically yelled, "I have to go! There is a tornado!!!" (Imagine having 6 children ages 1-4 years old and trying to get them to "duck and cover"! If it wasn't so scary, it would be pretty comical!!) So there it was. It was all out of my hands. I just kept working (I had two clients with color on their hair) and answering the phone, waiting for people to tell me what was going on. I just kept praying because I knew there was nothing else I could do. My last client offered to go home before we cut and dry her hair but what was I going to do? I couldn't really get to my kids at that point and they were probably safer where they were than in my car! I finished up at about 5:00 and was able to go pick up both kids. Ethan was still at Charles Haskell at 5:45 because bus routes were not running where we lived! Connie said she stepped out into the back yard with her son and actually saw the funnel coming their way and that is when she threw everyone into the bathroom. They were, of course, perfectly fine. We are all fine and home and warm with electricity which is more than I can say for a lot of other people tonight. My prayers are with those families. I know the tornadoes were near my cousin's (Brent and Abbey) house as well and I am assuming since I have not heard anything, all is well. (Abbey, I need to write down your phone number-I wanted to call you earlier!!) Anyway, all of this to say, it is times like these when I realize that I do all I can do as a parent but there does come a time when it is out of my hands and all I can do is pray. Lucky for me today, it worked!!!