Storms and Stitches

Bob runs the weight room for the High School on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. On those days, he needs to leave just as soon as I get home in order to make it on time. Well Thursday, they'd been predicting bad storms all day long. I got home at 5:30pm, and Bob was heading out the door. The storms had already hit Wichita and were quickly heading our way.

Frank came upstairs and asked me if he could go over to the neighbor girl's house. I told him that he needed to stay home. He whined "Well, LIBBY is over therrrrreeee." I told him to go and get Libby, because I wanted them all home when the storm hit.

Well I went ahead and started unwinding from my day, checking the mail, etc. I didn't realize that Frank had never come back from the neighbor girl's. I'd just been home a few minutes when Carlie starts crying in my bedroom. She hardly ever cries when she gets hurt, so when she does cry, I know it's serious. They'd been on my bed playing, and Madi and pulled Carlie by the arm and she hit the post on my bed

LIBBY is also in there with the little girls. I asked her what she was doing in there and she said she'd been asleep in my bed. It briefly registers in my brain "Well, where's Frank then?" But I am trying to take care of Carlie and see where the blood is coming from. She has a hole in the corner of her upper lip about the size of the end of my little finger. It's going to need some stitches.

I'm not freaking out, but there is an edge of panic there. My two-seater sports car is parked behind the SUV. So I decide that I will take Carlie in that to the ER to get stitches. I put her (bleeding and crying) into the car, and then Madi and Libby run out and ask "But what about US?" I realize that I can't leave them there alone...especially not with a huge storm coming. I don't know what I was thinking. So I get Carlie out of my car and into the SUV and get Madi and Libby loaded up and realize that Frank is missing.

He never came back from the neighbor girl's. By now, the storm is really close. The wind is blowing and it's dark. I drive to the neighbor's house, but no one is at home!!! I have NO idea where Frank is. Again, for a split second I think about just leaving him. LOL. I decide that I will drive through the neighborhood looking for him. The winding is blowing, and I'm driving around shouting from my car window "FRANNNKKKK....Where ARE YOU?????" I run into the older lady who lives across the street. She's walking her dog. I ask "Have you seen Frank?" She says "He went that way. He said he was looking for Libby." I go down a few houses and another set of neighbors are sitting out on their porch watching the storm roll in. They again point me in the direction Frank went. Eventually, I catch up to him, and get him loaded into the car.

We make it to the ER right before the storm hits. By this time Carlie has quite crying, and she's completely calm, cool and collected. Much more so that I am!! She was SO brave at the ER. She told the ER doctor, that she wants to be a doctor too, but she only wants to take care of 1st graders! They put a stitch in her lip and send us home. She did not move or make a sound as they gave her a shot in her lip and sewed it up.

On the way home, I call Granny to tell her what's happened. She is on her way to the cellar. The storm has just hit their area. Granny and Papaw had just made it to their cellar when a small tornado went over their house. It brought down one of their trees along with tons of other big limbs. It lifted up the edge of the roof of their house as well. But they were lucky they were in the cellar and there was no other damage.

By 8pm it was all over. Whew!!!