Wednesday morning started with a bang. That was fine because I expected it, sort of.
I set my alarm on my cell phone early to attend “Every 15 Minutes” at Clear Lake High School. I was set to experience the traumatic and emotional event.
The cell phone alarm went off five minutes early. My daughter Nicole, 21, was on the phone. “Hey Mommy, do you believe in miracles?” She asked as she laughed.
I was working through the cobwebs in my tired brain when I said, “huh?”
“The tree fell,” she answered.
That statement did wake me up. I knew she was talking about the towering oak tree that disrupted my sweet slumber for nearly 15 years, anytime the wind blew.
It was a still day. In the early morning hours before the four children across the way came outside to ride bikes and collect rocks and flowers, the mighty oak came crashing to the ground, inches from Nicole”s bedroom.
“It was such a loud bang. I thought it was an earthquake,” she told me. She said she went back to sleep and dreamt about earthquake emergency plans until she heard the other neighbors talking outside. That was followed by emergency volunteers, the fire department and P G & E.
Nicole is super-mellow and the opposite of dramatic. As a toddler she actually slept through an earthquake that threw her violently from her bed.
The owner of the tree is my neighbor Sharon, who is more of a family member than neighbor. She was not home. I was so glad. If there”s one person who I hate to see upset, it”s Sharon.
I called her on her cell phone and said, “Let me premise this conversation with, ”everything and everybody is fine” and the big tree fell.
All day she felt tattered. She was plaguing herself with the what-ifs.
All that day I felt graced and jubilant.
As I witnessed the “Every 15 Minutes” program, I thought it a perfect parallel to my day.
The mock accident also started with a bang. Even though I expected it, I jumped, startled.
I too, like the parents involved in the program, would be brought to my knees if my children were injured. Instead the branches splintered all around with the possibility of being a threat but sparing my family and the safety of my home from that pain.
The diversionary program aimed to halt drinking and driving fatalities that was enacted at Clear Lake High School supplied a scare, portrayed a threat to families, security and safety.
Even though my thoughts this week are as scattered as the pieces of the fence that once formed a straight line in front of my humble home; I am reveling in the sound of my daughter”s voice.
Nicole asked me today if a tree falls on a church, does the insurance company still call it an act of God? She laughs slow and steady. Amid chaos it is the sound of sunshine.
Mandy Feder is the Record-Bee news editor. She can be reached at mandyfeder@yahoo.com or 263-5636 Ext. 32.
