In Which I Express My Thanks

I write this post tonight in the comfort of my warm, well-lit home, with the television on and wi-fi working. It is almost a strange place to be: home. And a strange state: warm. For this was not the norm for the week.

As many of you know, my city was hit with a major ice storm last Sunday and Monday. Although some people had lost power Sunday, I headed to work Monday morning with high hopes of making it through the storm without a problem. But after a long drive through many four-way stops that should have been stoplights, it started to become disheartening. When I made it to work (so thankful that they, at least, had power), I learned that most of my colleagues were without power already. Around noon, I learned that my power had gone out as well. The rest of the day became almost a game to us: who had lost power now? Unlike the students, who wanted us to cancel school during finals week, we were just thankful to have found warm places to crash. Never had our offices seemed so inviting. I stayed late into the night, nearly until it was time for the building to close, simply because I wanted to avoid going home to a dark, cold house as long as possible.

That first night, B and I stayed at home. It was cold, but some residual heat remained initially, so it wasn't unbearable...till morning. You could almost almost say it was like camping, except you had to get up in the morning and try to look presentable without any light or blowdryer. I tried not to complain. After all, there are a whole lot of people in the world who are a lot worse off.

Tuesday was frigid from my first waking moment until the end of the workday. There was really no way to warm myself from the internal chill that had set in during the night, and the thought of spending even one more night in the cold seemed almost unthinkable. But the most amazing thing happened Tuesday afternoon: we were informed that the university was opening up an empty dorm to faculty, staff, commuter students, and their immediate households who did not have power. Needless to say, I jumped at the chance to have light and heat; after all, I myself had exams to study for, and the thought of a warm bed seemed much more inviting than my previous idea of curling up in a sleeping bag on the hard floor of my office, hoping that the security guards wouldn't find me and kick me out into the cold, dark night.

As it turns out, B and I got to stay in my former beloved Braxton Hall, my home away from home for the four years of undergrad. We were even assigned a room on Sigma (though, of course, nobody knew that it was named Sigma except for us). How exciting! Never had I imagined in all my post-undergraduate years that I might again feel excitement at the prospect of living in the dorms. Or eating in the cafeteria. Yet, my friends, there are no words to express the deep and heartfelt thankfulness that I felt, particularly that first night, as I walked into a warm, bright room and unloaded my Greek textbooks to cram for my morning exam.

We stayed in Braxton for two nights, and finally midday on Thursday we regained electricity at the house. It was good to leave, but I will be forever grateful to ORU for opening Braxton up to us. It was one of those surprising things, in the midst of a semester that has given us nothing but turmoil; where we have wondered continually what would happen and whether we would survive it; where we have borne the weight of anger and betrayal and factionism; where we have lost the ability to trust; where we have questioned whether any good remained. But there is a lot of good remaining, and many good people, too. For when we were cold, they gave us shelter; when we were hungry, they gave us warm food; when we were in the dark, they gave us light by which to study. It doesn't make up for everything else that has happened during this hellish semester (or, for me, year), but it is the first tangible step toward healing. And I will always be thankful for it.

It's amazing how heavily hit the town has been by this storm. I've seen my share of ice storms, but I've never seen the devastation that this one has caused. There are so many downed tree limbs that you'd almost think a tornado went through, cutting a path as wide as all of northeastern Oklahoma (and beyond).

During the ice storm itself, you could drive past large trees that were literally bowed down to the ground, under the weight of ice. I snapped a picture of one small tree as an example, but the most moving sight I saw was a large weeping willow, prostrate. I wish I had been able to capture it on film, because I don't think I have words to describe it, but I was overwhelmed by the thought that something so small as rain could bend a large tree to the ground.

It was as though the tree itself was bowing in the presence of something stronger than itself.

And I had to pause and wonder. In this hectic Christmas season, it is so easy to get caught up in the business of shopping and committments and final exams and end-of-year wrap-ups. In a normal round of this, it is easy to think that you are the center of your own world, that it revolves around you and your joys and your problems. How astounding it was, indeed, to be reminded (oh so bitterly) that all of our strength in this world can be brought to a stop in a mere instant, with something as simple as rain, freezing us to the ground like that willow tree, prostrate in the face of a force much larger than us.