Even If You Were Told

As I hung up the phone, I turned to find D. standing in our room looking at me and waiting patiently. Rare is an understatement here...patience is not a characteristic anyone would use in describing me, and most definitely not my son. He wanted to know more about the weather and to let me know that he was scared. (Feel free to insert a snarky mom-laugh here...cause that’s what I did). In full mom disclosure, I was a little annoyed at this point. My mind said he was just trying to keep from going to sleep, but before I could begin my very logical speech about the current situation, both of the girls appeared wanting to know what was going on. All I could think was, what is happening here? How did any of them know anything was even going on? There were no sirens going off. Just wind. It wasn’t even raining yet. I just wanted them all to get back in bed and go to sleep. With as much patience as I could muster, I let them know that there was a tornado warning for the other side of the county and that I would most definitely keep an eye on the situation. I reminded them that we have always woke them up for safety, and I didn’t plan on that changing tonight. So, if any severe weather even seemed like it might come close, I would most definitely come and get them. For some strange reason, my answer did not seem to settle them. They all just stood there looking at me like I was the foolish one! About that time, my husband walked through the door and, looking a little confused, asked the kids why in the world they were all standing around in our room instead of in bed. My thoughts exactly! All three of them explained that they were worried about the weather and asked if they could sit in the closet…just in case. Seriously?! Well, at this point, it was not worth arguing about. Clearly, they were bothered by this non-event. We told them that if sitting in the closet made them more comfortable, then go for it. So, I piled all three kids and two dogs into our closet to wait...for the rain. Of course, I figured that surely within the next thirty minutes they would calm down and we would all be in bed. My husband stood at the sliding glass doors in the kitchen that overlooked the backyard, watching the sky, listening to his fire radio, and talking on his phone. All at the same time. I stood in the bedroom flossing my teeth and watching the wall-to-wall weather coverage on a local station, because why wouldn’t I do those two things at the same time?! I can distinctly remember the meteorologist on the TV say something about the storm being very likely to collapse once it went over the mountain. This sounded typical, and I was not panicked. Not even a little alarmed. But then the cable went out. Hmm. Not too unusual with satellite TV. I tried livestreaming the weather on my phone, but for some reason, it wouldn’t pixelate. Huh! That was definitely strange. However, no sirens were going off, so no alarms were raised in my mind. The fire radio wasn’t mentioning anything either, so I figured maybe some heavy wind and rain was headed in our direction. As I stood in the bedroom confused as to why nothing was working, my husband walked into the room and turned toward the closet. He never said a word. Not knowing what was going on, and without thinking, I instinctively followed. I stepped into the closet behind him, closed the door, and as I took my hand off the doorknob and knelt to the floor, it was on us.