Before and After

If you know me at all, or if you've read my posts during springtime weather season in Kansas, you know that I have a perfectly normal, healthy, realistic, not-in-the-slightest-bit-debilitating fear of tornadoes. I also won a gazillion billion dollars in the lottery and bought myself the original Magnum P.I. red Ferrari I've always dreamed of owning. Not. There's not a shred of truth in the words you just read … not one itsy bitsy shred of truth. I most definitely, beyond the shadow of any doubt, did not win the lottery or buy the sweet red sports car driven by Mr. Selleck himself all those years ago on the famous TV show. And, though it pains me to admit it, my fear of tornadoes remains completely, totally, unequivocally, over-the-top irrational in every way.

While I know exactly from whence my desire to win the lottery and own a red Ferrari comes, I cannot definitively say what prompted my overwhelming fear of being sucked up into a tornado and whirled to death. I suppose I could attribute at least a portion of my irrational tornadic fear to the classic film "The Wizard of Oz," which I first viewed on a Sunday evening when I faked being sick so I could stay home from church and watch it. After all, directing partial blame for my current over-the-top fear of the massive swirling storms toward a movie I played hooky from church to watch 50-some-odd years ago does quite appeal to my Southern Baptist upbringing regarding the consequences of lying. I do find it difficult, however, to justify in my adult mind that a loving God would consider instilling such a debilitating fear of tornadoes within me for all time as just punishment for lying to my dad about being sick so I could miss church and watch TV. But alas, I digress.

Last weekend, I traveled with my son Brad to the town of Greensburg, Kansas, to attend the funeral of my son-in-law Barrett's father. I had never been to Greensburg before and it was every much as small-town America as I had imagined it would be. The people were friendly and eager to help us in any way they could, and the shopping opportunities were quite limited. Brad ventured out to the town liquor store shortly after we arrived in search of beer, and upon returning with a case of Bud Light, my beer-loving son sadly recounted that there was only one cooler for beer at the town's sole alcoholic beverage retailer and that his choices were substantially less than what my city boy is accustomed to. But, as I said, the townspeople were very kind and helpful, and they welcomed us with open arms. Which, in my opinion anyway, matters far more than Bud Light being the town's king of beers. 

Some of you may remember seeing images on the national news of the town of Greensburg, Kansas, after it was basically destroyed by an EF5 tornado a little more than 11 years ago. The tornado leveled 95 percent of the town, and 11 people lost their lives. The massive funnel was estimated to be 1.7 miles in width, wider than the town of Greensburg itself, with wind speeds approaching 265 miles per hour, traveling for nearly 22 miles. Miraculously, my son-in-law's parents' home was one of only a handful that sustained no damage whatsoever, and both Barrett's mom and dad survived the storm without injury ... really and truly a miracle on both counts.

I've never seen or experienced tornado damage up close and personal, but my son Brad has. He traveled as part of a film crew to Joplin, Missouri, just a couple of weeks after an EF5 multiple-vortex tornado struck the city in 2011. I well remember the multiple phone calls I received from Brad during the time he spent in Joplin ... some in which he cried as he tried to recount to me what he was seeing. My young son had never seen or experienced such tremendous loss or devastation as the people of Joplin, and the magnitude of it all was at times completely overwhelming to him. I also well remember the moment I received the photo below from Brad ... I sat at my desk and wept as I realized the danger my boy was in. His note that accompanied the photo said, "We had to tie our shirts around our faces because they ran out of masks, Mom. They said it wasn't safe to breathe the air in directly." The closer we got to Greensburg last weekend, the more I thought of how Brad would most certainly see the town through an entirely different set of eyes than I would.

As we neared the town of Greensburg last weekend, I couldn't help but notice the change in the terrain ... there were fewer trees and the ones that were there were much smaller than the ones we had seen 20 miles or so out of town. People often talk about how flat Kansas is, but there's a vast difference between land being flat and land being barren. Even though the people of Greensburg have rebuilt the town as the first "green" town in the nation, you don't have to look far to see reminders of the storm that tried its best to wipe the little town off the map more than a decade ago. Trees without limbs or bark still stand as guardians over the small town, beacons as to what the people of the town survived on the stormy night of May 4, 2007.

The barren and broken trees aren't the only reminders you'll find in Greensburg of the EF5 tornado that tore through the town. I quickly discovered that many of the residents who chose to remain in the small Kansas town following the massive storm (more than half of the population moved away) mark the passage of time as before and after the night the tornado touched down. Several times while I was there, I heard people say, "That was before the tornado," or "That was after the tornado," and those words have been pulsing in my mind all week. And generally when I get something stuck in my brain like that, it means there's something I'm supposed to learn from it. Or there's something someone else is supposed to learn. Or I'm just crazy and no one, including myself, is supposed to learn anything. Nah ... that last one can't be it ... there's a big lesson in those words for me, and maybe for you as well.

In thinking about those words from the people of Greensburg, I've been thinking about the tornadoes of life by which many of us measure our lives in terms of befores and afters. Tornadoes like getting divorced or getting fired from our job or being diagnosed with a life-threatening illness or experiencing the death of a loved one or being betrayed by someone we trusted or losing a furry friend or a plethora of other storms that come along. Storms that often threaten to destroy us ... to devastate our faith in ourselves, our faith in others, and even our faith in God.

It's so hard at times not to define ourselves by the befores and afters in life, at least it is for me anyway. And I think that maybe sometimes that's not such a bad thing, you know? Maybe recognizing the befores and afters in ourselves can serve to make us better people in the long run. Maybe it can cause us to seek shelter when we need to ... maybe it can encourage us to ask for help when we need it ... maybe it can spur us into action when we see others in danger. Maybe, just maybe, it can help us help each other ... care more about each other ... be kinder to each other. Maybe, just maybe, the befores and afters can make us better people if we let them. Maybe they can indeed, my friends ... maybe they can indeed. 

No Time Like the Present

If anyone would have told me when I was fresh out of college that I would spend the golden years of my career working in the advertising business, I most likely would have said that he or she was completely off his or her rocker. Not because working in the ad biz is a bad thing, mind you, but because my dream was to move to a little town in Colorado and be a reporter for a small-town newspaper, perhaps writing a weekly "from the heart" column that was dearly loved by all the townspeople. But life, however, led me down a different path than the one of my youthful dreams and I have thus spent the last 25ish years working as an editor in the fast-paced world of advertising … which I imagine is pretty far removed from what life as a writer in a little mountain town would have been. 

I often wish I would have thought to keep a list of all the young people I've worked with over the years and where their journeys have taken them since they moved on. I'm blessed that quite a few of them still keep in touch with me ... some, believe it or not, for more than 20 years ... and I always love it when I hear from them. From landing a gig in California as a screenwriter to going back to school to study nursing to deciding to be a stay-at-home parent to teaching English in China to taking six months off from the daily grind to travel the country in an old refurbished Chevy van, so many of those young folks have gone on to not only chase their dreams but to find them. Even though I know my part in their journeys was only miniscule, I still feel much like a proud mom every time they fill me in on where they are and what they're doing. 

Last week, I had a conversation with a young man who decided it was time for him to leave the company and walk a different path. Knowing how smart and talented this guy is, I assumed that he'd been offered another job that would further his career quest and had chosen to take it. His answer to my, "So where are you heading?" question, however, wasn't at all the answer I was expecting. The young man told me he was going back to his hometown so that he could be close to his family, in particular, his parents. He said there had recently been a death in his family and that losing that person had made him do some serious soul searching about what was really most important to him. In searching his soul, a truth that some of us never glean became quickly apparent to my young friend ... there is nothing in life that matters more than the time we have with the people we love.

I heard someone say recently that death makes us think more about living, and I think that's very true. Tonight, my son-in-law is sitting by the bedside of his dad who's in the last days, and possibly even the last hours, of his life. Both of my siblings are in their 70s, and they're fighting serious health issues. My 34-year-old great nephew has ALS and spends most of his days in a wheelchair. I've already attended more funerals in the first half of this year than I have in the last decade, and I come home from each one with a stronger determination to do a better job of living. I tell myself that I will do things, go places, meet people ... I tell myself to remember how very short life is and that I need to make the very most of the time I have left. I tell myself I'm going to change, be more in the moment and savor what precious time I have left on this planet.

I too often forget that I don't have forever ... I always think I can do it tomorrow. I can apologize tomorrow. Tomorrow, I can forgive those who have wronged me. Tomorrow, I can reach out to someone I know who is lonely. Tomorrow, I can stop allowing the people who don't value me to crush my spirit. But tomorrow isn't guaranteed, friends. Heck, not even my next breath is guaranteed. The truth is that I, probably along with many of you, need to realize that there's no time like the present. I need to embrace with everything in my being that there's no better day than today to start living. I simply must find a way to live every single moment of every single day with the understanding that I may not get another chance. I need to let that truth soak into the crevices of my soul and I need to pour it into every area of my life ...  work, home, relationships, even playing with my little 11-year-old wiener dog. I need to fully and completely comprehend that today may be my only shot to be kind, to be forgiving, to be loyal … that today may be my only shot to genuinely, deep-down to the bottom of my tiny little heart love and care about other people. It's way past time that I get it … way past time that I get that there really, unequivocally, beyond the shadow of any doubt is no time like the present.

There really is no time like the present to rid myself of the hurt and pain that others have caused me ... no time like the present to make things right with someone I've wronged or someone who's wronged me … no time like the present to do the right thing ... no time like the present to set out on a new adventure … no time like the present to build others up … no time like the present to invest every ounce of love that I have into the people I care about … not time like the present to write from my heart … no time like the present to listen … no time like the present to care … no time like the present to live.

My son Brad posted a beautiful photo recently of the sun rising over Kansas City. I'm stealing that photo along with the words he wrote to accompany it to close this post. My boy gets it … he really gets that there's no time like the present to live.

"Good morning, Kansas City. Remember our world is beautiful, and be good to each other out there."