I don't remember much of the actual event: just fragments of it.  The sky lowering and growing darker and more sinister by the minute.  The weather guy on the tv warning us to get to shelter or to a safe place as there was a tornado warning in progress.  The sounds of the sirens blaring in the distance.  The red and purple lightning zigzagging across the pearl-grey sky, the roiling clouds, the terror I felt as we dashed for the closet, which was in the center most location of our house ...

We never made it.  The next thing I knew, there was this horrific "BOOOOOOOOM!" and then stuff flying in all directions.  That was the last thing I remember before everything went black ...

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I was surprised to wake up in a hospital room.  I was lying in bed, an IV dripping something into my arm.  I hurt all over and concerned faces bent over my head.  Nurses tended to me; doctors came in once in a while, where they shone lights into my eyes and asked me to do simple instructions, such as blink my eyes, move my arms, fingers, legs, toes, or to see if I knew how many fingers they were holding up.

My head was splitting in two; it felt like someone had worked me over with a baseball bat.  The last thing I wanted to do was talk or move.  All I could do was let out a weak moan; it hurt too much to do anything.

That was when my parents came into the room to see me.  They looked pretty banged up.  Father sported a cast and a bandage on his head; Mama, meanwhile, was hobbling on two crutches attached to her forearms and her leg was in a boot.  The boot was, as I remember correctly, dark navy blue.  They looked terribly relieved to see me.

Father told me what had happened.  Apparently a tornado had come roaring through; it was a pretty big one from what I gathered.  It hit our house; it blew up into a million pieces.  It was a thousand miracles we weren't killed (although we had been injured).  I couldn't believe it.  A TORNADO??  In winter??

Yet that is exactly what had taken place.  And I had managed to survive through it; all my family members did, I found out later, which was a huge answer to prayer.  Yes, we did have some recovery time ahead of us, but the most important thing was this: we were alive.

~To be continued!~