On May 22nd, I was at my grandparents' house in Northern Missouri. There were bad storms rolling through that stretched in a diagonal line from Southwest Missouri to St. Louis in the Northeast. We had the TV tuned to the news, ready to go down into their cellar if necessary. My cousins even showed up to use the cellar if a tornado were predicted to come by us. To those of you not in tornado alley, you know to dread the sound of tornado sirens. Since my grandparents live in the middle of the country on their farm, there are no sirens to be heard, so you have to rely on the tv for tornado warnings until the signal is lost due to the storm, and then switch over to a weather radio, if you have one. Well, that night, we were not directly in the path of a tornado that touched down about 30 miles from us, but we soon learned of the devastation that had fallen on Joplin. An EF-5 tornado blasted through that city, with a 3/4 mile wide track that went on for 6 miles. We watched the television as a storm chaser from The Weather Channel checked cars for anyone he could help in the parking lot of the St. John's hospital, and it was hard to imagine the destruction.
Soon, the storm had passed, giving way to a beautiful sunset on the farm, along with a faint double rainbow. Turns out, double rainbows were seen all along the path of the storm, even in the devastated Joplin. It's such an odd reminder that out of the ruins terrible beauty can be found.
Joplin is close enough to where I live that I could drive there in about an hour and a half. So, I decided to give a helping hand, un coup de main, when I could. When I drove through the city for the first time, my heart broke. So many people perished, so many more had no place to live, and so many had lost their jobs because of this act of nature. The majority of the time I've sorted clothes or helped people through one of the many food banks set up around the town for the thousands that found themselves homeless. One woman had given space in her home to over 10 people she knew that had been left without a place to live after the tornado. The outpouring of compassion for this town has also been amazing to me. There have been many days when I have felt useless because there are so many volunteers, which I think is an incredible thing. Talking to people, you can see that everyone wants to help: boy scout troops, youth groups, people even dedicate their family vacations to helping Joplin. So, in this case, it's a good thing to not be needed!
One day in early June, my mom and I both went to volunteer. We started the day by helping to remove the rubble of a destroyed neighborhood. We came prepared with work gloves, sunscreen, water, and we were given a face mask that turned out to be very necessary due to the smells of the rotting wood and other items in the ruins. There was really no good or bad place to start, so we just dug into the pile of mulch that had once been someone's home. I was pulling up pieces of ventilation, and underneath I found a purple teddy bear. He was pretty dirty, but he was still in one piece. I placed him among the items that could be salvaged from that home, and I hope that he has made his way back to the child that loved him.
One day, I was very touched by a pillow that was left on the curb by a tree that had been cut down in front of a home that would soon need to be demolished. The words etched on the pillow summed up how this community is pulling itself back together. It is the love that people feel for their neighbors that guided so many people to help in Joplin. I know that there is still a lot of work to be done in this city, but if people continue to share their time and compassion, then I think that there will be a bright future ahead for these people who have gone through so much.
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