Spared

My Gama (read:  Grandma.  Sorry, people, you're going to have to deal with some southern-isms.  You're lucky, as I tend to keep those to a minimum.  There will only be the occasional "ain't" and "y'all".  You'll get used to it.)...so my Gama called me today and told me about a bad storm that came through last night.  My family lives in a rural part of the south that gets its share of bad thunderstorms and tornados.

My Gama has only lived in her house for a few months; my Papa (pronounced Pap-ahh) died last summer, almost immediately after they moved in.  So she's been adjusting to:  living without her husband of 56 years, living alone for the first time in her 73 years, and...living close to my parents.  Trials, people.

Last night when the storm moved in, she heard a loud CRACK and the sound of a lot of smashing glass.  She felt the vibration in the floor and knew that a tree had fallen.  She ran all over the house to see if there was any damage, but couldn't find anything wrong.

This morning when she got up, she looked outside to find an enormous, old oak tree that had fallen onto her neighbor's truck.  The tree smashed it completely into the ground.  Thank God that tree didn't fall on her house; it would have fallen on her bedroom.  Thank God that the neighbors had, for whatever reason, not parked their good car in that particular spot, but had parked their old crappy truck there instead.  And of course, thank God that no one was in the truck!

As she was telling me the story, I freaked out a bit internally, thinking what could have happened.  But that didn't happen.  Thank God.