Gratitude
Many of us woke up yesterday morning, realized it was another work day, and grumbled a bit about having to get up so early and go to a job we tolerate. We might have looked out the window of our homes and saw some sticks or other tree debris in the yard from the prior day’s storms—perhaps a small limb from a tree—and sighed at the prospect of our weekly lawn mowing being delayed by having to pick up those sticks. And we might have shaken our heads in disgust as that was added to the rest of the list of other household chores for the upcoming weekend.
But hopefully each of us very quickly said a few words of gratitude for still having our home regardless of the chores list…still having trees although with a few small branches missing…still having a job to go to…and bluntly, still waking up that morning.
That’s because for folks in Greenfield, they’d give about anything to have the list of problems most of us do in the wake of the fatal and devastating tornado that hit the Adair County seat town Tuesday afternoon.
Many of you have had your own similar stories…the record-setting derecho not even four years ago destroyed the tree canopy in Cedar Rapids as well as downtown buildings in smaller cities all along Highway 30…the number of newer-looking buildings in Parkersburg is due to damage to the ones in place when a tornado struck there just 16 years ago this week…or a half century before that in Charles City and Oelwein.
Many of our state’s citizens today are waking up to a very different world than the one they knew as this week started. I grunted and groaned last night as I moved a couple of large branches that fell to the ground at my house…but I was glad to do it. As we remember those who are suffering from all the storms this spring…be thankful for what we do have.
