Being Bassets.: Home sweet 'homa

Emotions have been high around these parts lately. Retirement parties and well wishes. Spring concerts with proud moments. Tornadoes that ravaged many areas around us - too close for comfort. Memorial Day weekend and home videos {when I heard my daddy's voice and immediately started crying}. The prep to move into our new home and leave our temporary one with family. We have been pulled in many directions.

A little over a week ago {as almost everyone in the world now knows} tornadoes and other severe weather hit our home sweet 'homa. Being a born and bred Okie for almost 29 years now, I have come to know our skies and the atmosphere. I know when it looks and feels like tornadoes are a-comin' or just another old fashioned Oklahoma thunderstorm. However, in all of my years, this is the first time that I have felt the impact unlike any other. More than 1999. More than the one that hit Norman. More than the ones that have formed just miles away from me. I have friends, former coworkers, and family of close friends that have been directly affected by something that causes so much harm in so little time.

I have cried. I have prayed. I have become more weary of the weather than I ever used to be; part because of the mama bear instinct and part because of the aftermath of this one. I have felt survivor's guilt - knowing people I know and love have not much left and here I am with all I have, prepping to move into a home, untouched. I have felt lucky and blessed. I have tried to spread the word and help in small ways - and hopefully will be able to do more soon.

It has felt somewhat silly even, going on about the regular day to day when just a few miles down the road people are dealing with their new normal for the next several months to even years. Being relocated not by choice- but because they have no other choice. I have even felt silly just feeling the way I feel, almost like I don't have the right to feel that way- just because the storm missed me.

And then, I think again. I do have the right to feel the way I am feeling. They are Okies just like me. Like so many have said lately- when it gets one of us - it gets all of us. My heart is with them- even when I'm physically not. It's just the way we're built.

And, with the emotions still running high from the storm, we entered Memorial Day weekend. Thoughts of those that have gone before us, those that have sacrificed all they have. Family members and friends. Ours was filled with just that - and some really good food. Because you can't have an American holiday without it.