Blessing?/Ike Chronicle #3

From DC:

Have you ever gotten that feeling that someone is watching over you and that calling yourself extremely lucky just won't cut it anymore? After Hurricane Ike, as I said before, one half of a big tree fell on the roof of my house - but there was no damage. Another smaller tree fell on the garage roof but there was no damage there either. In my backyard, imagine an area the size of a two car garage, on one side is the tree, on the second side hangs the power line to my house from the lamp post, on the third side is the glass window of my kitchen and on the fourth side is a row of big glass aquariums given to me by a pet store I was in the process of cleaning. A couple of huge tree branches fell right in the middle of this area without hitting anything. It was a perfect fit. A few inches off would have resulted in either a lot of hassle or expense.

Remember my car with another half of a big tree on top of the trunk? Not a scratch, not a teeny winnie dent. Somebody explained that the tree must have fallen in like a slow motion manner and the branches absorbed the weight. I can tell from the howling of the wind and the horizontal raindrops pelting my glass window that the words "slow motion" and "hurricane" just do not go together.

I don't think I was extremely lucky or blessed for I know I deserve to be neither. I know it could have been worse, but that is a very poor measure of good luck, isn't it? Why were things bad in the first place. If the hurricane blew a suitcase full of hundred dollar bills into my front lawn, then we're talkin'. Neither do I think I was blessed. For one thing, I will be the first to admit that I am not a religious person. I go to church only because the whole Christendom is celebrating one of two things at the time: Either Jesus was born or Jesus died. Don't laugh at me, I know a lot of you out there are the same way. When trees fall all over your house, it's hard to consider that a blessing. Unless I missed something in the fine print. Also, I don't believe in blessings in disguise. To me, a blessing in disguise would only exist if the blessor wants to remain anonymous. But since we all know who doles them out, what's the point.

Kidding aside, I really am convinced that someone was watching over me and my son that night. Not only then, but in many other times in our lives when the difference separating safety and disaster was a nanoevent. And so I told my son that we need to go church because we have so much to be thankful for. For one thing, we had our power back on after only two and a half days (I know, it could have been worse).The people on the other side of our street don't have theirs yet and it has been two weeks. Two and a half days and I was already going crazy from the heat, humidity, discomfort and darkness. Without the entertainment provided by electronics, me and my son can only play so much board games. We got tired of scrabble, my son hates chess, I hate monopoly, we bended the rules in pictionary since there are only 2 players. I learned "go fish" and my son got into solitaire only because he found out it was a one person game and so he did not have to deal with his irritable father the duration of the game.

And so we both went to church and thanked God for looking after us and to please continue to look after us and I promised to be a better member of His flock. I also talked to Him about this earthly concept we have called the "lottery". Couldn't hurt. I was thinking, you know, while He's at it, maybe we can work out something. If you receive a postcard from the Caribbean with a picture of suntanned me sprawled on the beach, you know He obliged me.

DC