Is there a time to cry?

  Written by Joyce Penner on Apr 16, 2011 7:57 am

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Is there a lesson here for others?  Probably not.  But maybe you can comment and tell me if there is something you’ve learned from this story.

 It was Friday morning.  I had walked my kids out to the road to catch the bus.  A little drizzly but basically a nice, although cloudy spring day.

 Time for my breakfast, a quiet cup of coffee, get dressed, sit down at my computer to start my day.

 I got the breakfast and coffee part down but I decided to check my emails and scroll around and see if anything was new before I got into the shower.

 So in essence I was still in my pyjamas when it happened.

I heard an explosion.  A huge bang.  Looked out my patio door and couldn’t see a thing.  Black, grey and white billowy what appeared to be smoke outside (turns out it was dust).  My dog made a strange sound.  Swinging around I could see my back door was open and the dog was in distress.  I ran.  What else could I do?  I didn’t notice the broken glass littering the floor.  I didn’t even feel it as I ran in bare feet to rescue her from I knew not what.  In the porch, swinging the door shut I noticed the old TV antenna was hanging off the garage roof.  Strange I thought.  I ran back, over the glass, to the patio door.  Even stranger there was not a hint of smoke outside.  The air was clear and I stepped outside onto the patio deck to see what had happened. 

 North, all looked fine.  West, the doors on the old shed my landlord used for storage were off their hinges, all 4 of them.  Strange.  Then I turned south.  Nothing was moving.  Not a blade of grass.  Not a wisp of smoke but the whole area right up to, over and around the house was covered in debris.  Insulation, small broken up sheets of plywood, 2 x 4’s had impaled the ground and were sticking straight up, others were lying flat, giant fans were lying tilted, their blades not moving.  Everything was deadly quiet.

 A barn, 100 feet x 40, 75 feet south of the house was flattened.  Like a bomb had hit it.  It was empty, had been for years.  The previous owner had used it to raise chickens and I had never even seen anyone enter the building as long as I had lived here. 

Now it was gone.  Well, not gone but scattered in pieces everywhere, hundreds of feet away from its original position.  Flattened.

(More pictures on my blog)

Apparently I should have phoned 911 immediately.  I didn’t.  I wanted the power shut off and I wanted it shut off now.  Heavy power lines, lying on the grass, crisscrossed the yard.  I assumed they were live carrying a voltage I didn’t even want to imagine.  I justified it later that the emergency workers who would show up couldn’t do what they needed to do until the power was dead.  Apparently that was a wrong decision (according to the Fire Chief).

The guy at the power company who answered the phone thought I was nuts.  “What do you mean a barn has exploded?”  My landlord thought the same thing when I called him but he assured me he’d be there soon as I sounded upset.  That may have been an understatement!

The power guys showed up and just looked.  The police showed up and just looked.  An employee from the hog barns just east of me, showed up and looked.  The landlord flew into the driveway and immediately drove to the propane tanks to shut off the flow of propane.  Someone handed me a cell phone, it was the manager of the hog barns: “Joyce, I want you to pack a small bag for the kids, do not start your car but get off the property and get off now.” 

I didn’t.

There was too much to explain.  Too many people asking questions.  None of which I could answer. 

The fire crew, ambulance staff, more police, another power employee all asking questions and I forgot to leave.

Hours passed before a police office and the fire inspector finished with their questions and I could take a breath.

It felt like just minutes had passed.  Turns out my landlord had been 45 miles away when I called him.  Couldn’t be, he was here in minutes?

It was then and only then that I realized the glass on the floor was from pictures that had fallen off the walls: kitchen, living room, both kids bedrooms, bathroom medicine cabinet empty of its contents.  My bedroom was undamaged because, they think, I had my window open a couple of inches.  Windows were pulled right out of their frames, unbroken.  Doors were split from what I now understand was from both the explosion and the implosion.

There was more.  The garage was shifted right off its foundation.  The machine shed where all the tractors and tools were stored had every window and door blown out and off.  Siding buckled, roof caved in, second floor now resting on the first floor.  Pipes to the furnace were disconnected inside the house.  Hot water tank no longer worked.  Glass and mud from everyone’s boots tracked throughout the whole house.

It was time to pack a suitcase for the kids and find a place for them to stay.  I was alone in the car, driving into town when this whole thing hit me.  I was safe.  My car didn’t have a scratch on it.  I was more than safe, I was alive in what the fire commission says is the worst explosion he had ever seen in his whole career.  But I had too much to do yet to cry.  It wasn’t time.

I hadn’t realized until that point that I was in the only spot in the whole house where there was no damage.  If the debris would have flown at 45 degrees further north instead of west my house would look like the machine shed.  How is it that my car, right out in the open had debris all around it and not one scratch?  Wow, I was not only OK but I was still alive with a functioning, undamaged car.

Still not the time to cry.  The flood was coming.  If the repairs weren’t done soon nobody would be able to get out to my place to start them.  I had animals to take care of.  I couldn’t bring the animals to town and I couldn’t bring the kids home.  Had to keep going.  Make sure stuff happened. 

Kids settled.  Back to the farm.  More questions.  Police gone.  Forgot to say thanks.  Can’t clean the house until the insurance guy comes.  Dogs won’t leave my side.  Are they scared or are they protecting me?  Not sure. 

Then the sightseers started coming.  People dropping in to tell me they’d heard the explosion 20, 30, 40 miles away.  Ten miles away pictures falling off walls, shelves rattling, ears had popped, chest pains from people who’d felt the air pressure change.  I tolerated them until they started throwing their empty coffee cups out of their vehicles.  And I wondered didn’t they realize I had enough to clean up?  I didn’t need their garbage all over my lawn.  Nice people I’m sure but I’d had enough.  I almost cried then.

Couple times, out at the farm, waiting for some professional to show up, I felt the tears coming.  Better get busy, stave them off for a bit longer.  Had to write an hour long speech on fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) for a group who had asked me weeks ago.  Wasn’t going to back out on that one regardless of what was going on in my life.  They could be the right lobby group to get the government to recognize FASD children needed to be funded in schools.  Pulled that off OK, even with the lack of preparation.

Working on my income tax filled some empty hours up. 

Slowly it’s coming.  The heat is back on.  The internet/phone is reconnected.  The carpenter showed up this afternoon.  No hot water yet.  The church is coming to help me clean up the yard where the kids play. 

And what’s the lesson in all of this?

It wasn’t my time.  I have something to do yet.  And it feels like it’s got to be something big.  Something maybe as big as my dreams and goals are.

That is exciting!  I roll out of the sleeping bag at 5 o’clock each morning to come out to the farm to care for the animals with anticipation of what this new day is going to bring.

So maybe the tears won’t ever come.  Maybe I can just be grateful my life’s purpose was worthy enough to keep me here at least one more day.

There’s only one who knows and that plan will unfold as it should.

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