I’ve decided to post about OKC in parts:

If you’re looking for Mark Harmon photos/info, click here.

If you’re looking for OKC Energy FC info, click here.

I had to get up early this morning. With an 8 hour drive ahead of me, plus wanting to stop at the Clinton Library in Little Rock, I knew I needed to get a good start to the day. I also wanted to take a drive through Moore, OK, where Cait and I toured the day after the El Reno tornado and only a week or so after the Moore tornado. I wasn’t sure if I could find the same place, but Moore isn’t big, so I figured I’d just circle a bit and see what was left of the damage. As I drove, a few things started to look familiar and suddenly I was turning into the same neighborhood we saw last year.

As I turned off the main road, I started to feel really, really overwhelmed. I think I was riding so high on adrenaline last year, esp. with the continuous storms the entire drive home, I didn’t really get the chance to deal with the enormity of it all.

Then Jeff Buckley’s version of Hallelujah  came on my playlist and I just lost it.

I have zero idea how these people continue to live there and just rebuild and move on with life. I spent the whole weekend with one eye to the sky, and I saw someone out planting in their front yard like it won’t blow away again (the house, who cares about the flowers). Many homes were still being repaired, some finished and some were just empty lots.  The roads are still cakes with dirt, though the debris are gone.

I think it was really good to drive through the same neighborhood. In a way it was oddly reassuring that, even after the worst of things, life goes on. Even if it seems impossible. I look at the top photo, and I wouldn’t even know where to begin with a massive pile of rubble. I remember seeing families just standing at the end of the driveway, staring at the mess and then just digging in.

While I won’t claim to be ‘over it’, maybe a little healing was done today.

*The house in the photo to the left no longer exists (just an empty lot).