It wasn’t so long ago that we were stuck in the middle of the big storm back in February of this year. I remember it well, although I wish I could forget it. The power had gone out and we had no water and no heat, and it lasted a total of nine days.
As you know Derya’s condition and the medication she needs to take it in order to get better compromises her immune system. As a consequence, she is far more vulnerable to sickness than your average person. And here we were with No Power, No Running Water, and No Heat – and the temperature outside was dropping below thirty degrees.
I remember watching the movie Signs. The Mel Gibson character (Rev. Graham Hess) and the Joaquin Phoenix character (Merrill Hess) were sitting watching the “lights” over Mexico City on the television. They have this discussion about coincidences and God. What it boils down to was that there are two types of people. Those who believe that no matter what – they are never alone – evidence that there is a God and the other group lives in the fear that there is no God and thus everything that happens is a 50/50 chance of it being good or bad.
Now, I’m not here arguing for God or against, your point of view, or mine. What I do know is this. I mention this movie because on the first day of the storm, Samime was headed down the road and she bumped into one of our neighbors – Mark. Now Mark and his wife, Deb haven’t been around much this year and not because of the weather. They’ve been great neighbors since they moved in and a delight to have next door. Like most of our neighbors, they’ve heard of Derya’s situation and feel great pain over what has happened to her. In many ways, both have been heroes in helping us out – and especially on this day – they were life savers! As to this day suffice to say that Mark’s only reason for being on the road that day was because he came to check on things up here.
That first day of the storm Mark saw Samime. He stopped and asked Samime how it was going. She relayed the situation and how she was worried about tonight and the drop in the temperature. He, out of the kindness of his heart, and the joy of living, offered up the generator he had sitting in his garage, for us to use until the power came back. What a miracle. It was, as mentioned before, a lifesaver of a move.
The generator got us through the next couple of days, running well enough to keep heaters going, and we even were able to run a couple of lights and charge our phones.
I don’t want the reader to feel as if I’m pushing our personal belief system on you. All I know is this, just as Joaquin Phoenix explained when he described how he had avoided kissing Amanda McKinney when she was about to puke – We feel the same – “I’m a miracle man.” I’m pretty sure I know that Samime would agree with me.
Don’t worry, the story of this winter storm isn’t over. There are other heroes in this story that haven’t been mentioned.
Until next time….
Here’s the link to the video segment mentioned above: