My own personal bruises from the storm have finally faded. Yep, I was an idiot and made one of the stupidest possible choices: I ran out as the hailstorm started, so I could pull my car into the garage. It took just seconds before a ball of hail popped me on the head. After I got in my car, I sat there a little stunned, relieved to be out of the storm, before I thought a second later, “Silly! You ran out here to rescue your car and now you’re sitting in it in the hailstorm!” At which point I, pulled my car in.
Lesson of Obvious Truths Learned: Never, ever, ever run out into a hailstorm. Duh! And health is far more important than rescuing a car. (In my defense, it was new-to-me. Still, double duh!)
Of course, my car ended up pitted, anyway. Getting that fixed is still in the future because we’re in the process of having our roof, gutters and various-metal-spouts-on-the-roof replaced or repaired. So is everyone else in our neighborhood, which resonates daily with the sound of hammers on roofs.
The flowers that I’d planted, just two days before the storm, were decimated. Some of them were just little stems after the storm, shorn of leaves and blooms. But, I re-set them in their pots, and gave them a drink of water and a dose of Miracle-Gro. The flowers aren’t quite as fully resplendent as in past years, but, amazingly, they’ve rebounded beautifully. Even though they’re smaller than past years’ flowers, they make me smile more, because I know how hard they had to work to survive and thrive again.
And when the ping-ping-ping of hammers on roofs starts to wear my nerves a little thin, I think, ahhh. That’s the sound of rebounding, of life going on.
I can’t imagine how hard that is in places that suffered storms far, far worse than our little hailstorm. But I hope that the ping-ping-ping of hammers and the hardy bloom of flowers provides a measure of hope and comfort.
Sharon Short’s column runs Monday in Life. Send e-mail to sharonshort@sharonshort.com.
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