Rain On The Roof Comforts Me

I love stormy weather. I love when I am lying in bed at night when a storm rolls through and I watch the lightening flicker on the ceiling. I love the rolls of thunder as it rumbles across the sky. I love daytime storms too. I love watching the clouds build up as the sky darkens. I love the trees swaying in the wind and watching debris blow around in the swirls caused by the wind. I love to watch the lightning bolts as they zap in the air. Yes, I love a good long rain on a lazy day when I can curl up with a good book.

I love rain on a tin roof. Yes, I have enjoyed many a good rainstorm pelting on the tin roof of the farmhouse Jim and I shared in Madison, Virginia. Many times the wind would blow just right and it would cause a sound like the roof was rolling. Like someone shaking a saw back and forth or a large piece of metal. That sound. I loved it. Rain pelting the windows, puddles filling in the yard, gutters barely able to handle the runoff. That is my kind of storm.

Living in Tampa was a treat in many ways, but most especially the fact that summer storms are aplenty. Storms in Tampa can be extremely violent, but I love them nonetheless. The Tampa house was struck by lightening one summer causing me to purchase a new air conditioning unit and having to replace motion detector lights on the back of the house. In spite of that, I still found myself standing at the window when the rains blew through so I could enjoy the show that Mother Nature was putting on for my viewing pleasure.

Jimmy was an oncology patient at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa when the storms on 2004 blew through. We would travel to Tampa every three weeks for his treatments and stay for the two weeks necessary for him to complete all the rounds of medications. September was a busy month for storms in Florida that year, most of which traveled through the middle of the state, and managed to brush us.

We had come back from Moffitt late one evening after Jim had had a daylong infusion. The power was off from the tropical storms winds and rains we were being subjected to. Most times, I would have loved watching the bands of wind and rain, but I had more pressing concerns with Jim’s health. I was also worried about the pool. The water was over the coping and I couldn’t pump it lower because the power was off. I put Jim to bed with the sliders open to the lanai to keep the house cool. The temperatures inside and out were actually comfortable. The rain was a steady tempo on the roof and as much as I wanted it to comfort me, I was pacing the floors.

Finally, I grabbed a five-gallon bucket from the garage and started to bail buckets of water out of the pool to the deck slope that would move it to the yard. Now, I know the water would run there anyway and we would not have had water in the house, but I couldn’t sleep. I need the physical labor of bailing the pool to keep myself together. I bailed for hours: I baled so much I could actually see the water lower in the pool. I bailed until the sun started to peak through the clouds and I bailed some more. And then finally, I cried.

The tropical rains were warm and there was no lightening so I could bail all night and I did. I’d never really shed many tears when we first learned of Jim’s disease. Tears seemed a luxury that I didn’t have. I had to be the stalwart one. I had to ask the tough questions and make arrangements for Jim’s doctor visits; documenting every detail in a three ring binder I still have. I felt that I was on alert at all times for all things Jim and if I cried then it was about me, not him.

Those tears in the rain were tears of love, frustration, fear, and fatigue. I sat at the edge of the pool looking back into the bedroom as Jim slept and he rolled over to see me there soaked from head toe. With his crooked smile he asked if the pool had flooded the house. I explained that I’d baled the pool all night and he reminded me the deck is sloped for run- off. He asked me if I was crying and I said it was the rain. I felt it was wrong for him to comfort me: I needed to comfort him. He told me to shower and get some sleep and in the same breath asked what was for breakfast. So, I showered and made him breakfast and then packed him up and we moved to my sister’s house because she still had power. I knew as the day passed the heat would build in the house and become unbearable for Jim. So, there we stayed camping out with Sue, Jim’s favorite sister-in-law.

The next trip down, Jim flew in two heavy-duty generators making the statement that we would not have to worry about a bad storm causing us to suffer through a power loss again. He also reminded me I’d never need to bail the pool again, but I knew if I needed a good cry in the rain that no generator would stop me from grabbing a bucket and starting to bail again.

Just as in Tampa, the storm of this past week in Del Ray, my funky burg of a town, has not diminished my love of a good storm. I was at my office watching the rain pour in torrents; the wind was whipping the drops sideways and the front road was flooding. We joked at work that we would be having flotsam and jetsam races out front of the office as we placed bets on Styrofoam cups and other pieces of trash floating by.

Little did I know the hell that had descended in my little town just a few miles away. I left work an hour early to head home when I received a text from a neighbor that we had no power and major damages in the neighborhood. The closer I got to home, the worse the effects of the storm. I couldn’t take a direct route and found myself twisting and turning every block or two to miss fallen trees and downed wires. I’ve never been to a war, but to say it looked like a war zone was an apt phrase. No street was unscathed, and ours was probably one of, if not the worst.

Trees littered the street making the road impassable from either end. Cars were buried under trees and power poles were snapped in half or lying on the road haphazardly like a child’s game of pick up sticks. Chimneys were blown off, shingles littered the street, twigs and leaves peppered house windows and yards. Trees were through roofs. Every new sight made my jaw drop further. I grabbed my camera to capture the sights before the sun set. The battery died before my thirst for another fallen tree and scarred house was satisfied.

Neighbors were standing and talking about what they saw and heard. I was fascinated by the power of the wind and rain and what destruction it had wrought to our sleepy little burg. And I was ever so thankful that I had no damage. Zip, zero, none. There was damage all around my home. Fortunately, I along with a handful of neighbors came through unscathed except for the power outage that would eventually claim food in the fridge. That is a small price to pay when I observed one neighbor with a tree settled nicely in the middle of their roof.

I have a lovely group of neighbors in Del Ray and the storm only served to unite us more. Texts, emails, and Face Book updates bounced back and forth to keep everyone apprised of the changing dynamics of the neighborhood. I had grabbed Toots and headed to Annapolis to ride out the power outage. Most of my neighbors roughed it and stayed in their homes, many were fortunate to have access to generators.

Friday morning I headed back to the neighborhood to tour during daylight with a freshly charged battery. The three-hour walk I took amazed me with the sites I saw. Metal light poles at the new car dealership snapped and crashed the lights and poles into the hoods of shiny new cars on the lot. Our post office had a blown out window. I lost count of cars under trees and trees on roofs. Chimney caps were lying in yards causing us to wonder how far they had been carried by the wind.

Power lines were lying on the road and flung through trees everywhere like spaghetti tossed out of a bowl. Power poles had blown over or snapped in half taking with then additional poles. Poles leaned making me wonder if they would stand through the day. Ancient oaks were leveled, pulling up root balls taller than me and their canopies fell across three and four yards crushing fences, garages, outdoors furniture, and yes a beautiful blue kayak.

As I walked, I would strike up a conversation with one or more stranger/neighbor from around the town and we began to grow as a group being led in one direction or another as everyone had one more piece of destruction, “you just have to see”.

Folks in their yards, cleaning up their debris, would stop us to ask about other sections of the town. We would show them our pictures often hearing them remark how thankful they were that their damages were minimal compared to the images on our cameras. It was nice to see neighbors helping neighbors to cut and remove the offending branches in each other’s yards.

Last night, I was having dinner at one of the local eateries that dot the street by my home and I lost count of the tree company trucks rumbling past us. I wanted to snap shots of all of them, but I new it would be rude to my dinner companion. The tree removal companies were from Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Glen Allen, Virginia just to name a few. Power companies from as far as Shelby, NC were passing by as was Old Dominion and others from Pennsylvania. It was still a very interesting phenomenon to see all of the repairs and cleanup as it started to move through the community.

I surveyed my back alley in the dark last night. There were lights from the houses dotting the darkness but the strangest sensation was the openness to the sky. The beautiful canopy of leaves is gone. The moonlight cast strange shadows in darkened corners that have been hidden for years by majestic trees.

Standing in the alley late last night, I smiled as I heard joyful sounds from neighbor’s decks and patios as they celebrated the return of power and were sharing cool cocktails after several days of chain saws and insurance company officials. I don’t know why I have been so fascinated with the destruction of this storm. I suppose because it was so abstract, so violent, and so disruptive to our lives, like the proverbial train wreck: you have too look. I know that I look forward to the next storm with rain on the roof, because it will still comfort me. I also new that the aftermath of this storm, in our little town, would unite neighbors, and strangers would make new friendships. I know that I did.