On Monday I had a scheduled Department Head Meeting. The meeting started at 3:30 and we went hard at it going through an agenda that was lengthy but necessary to finish. Around 5:30 we were told that bad weather was headed our way and could have baseball size hail. We quickly ended the meeting and out the door I went to raced home. I almost stopped and went to the bathroom but didn’t. I didn’t want to take a chance on any hail hitting the new Blue Happy Truck. All the way home I talk to Greg he could tell I was so scared. The sky to my right was not just gray and cloudy it was black and scary. Greg said you’ll be fine it’s going around us. Just before I got to my neighborhood we hung up but seconds later he called and said get home now it’s about to hit and its bad. I pulled in the garage, shut it, walked into the house and watched as my patio was torn apart. All my pretty’s that I had refurbished, all my plants and pots tossed around by wind and beat up by hail.
I quickly got word that the damage in Wylie was bad and our little school suffered a lot of damage. My thought went straight to my school studio it has large windows and glass french doors in the back. The art show that is Saturday the 16th was sitting directly under one of those large windows. I had packed the show into tubs all organized and ready to set up on Friday. As of now the art show has been postponed to another date. As I drove to the school I prayed really hard that our school wasn’t as bad as I thought, that my art room would be safe and no one was hurt. When I left there were still people at school and a baseball game was just ending. By the time I got there it was almost dark plenty of people had come up to check the school. We suffered over 40 broken windows, roof damage, limbs everywhere and our bus had broken windows. We had 2 teachers that got caught at school one lost her van and the other teacher got hurt from getting hit in the head. I was told she is fine but when she got home it wasn’t. We had many teachers with damaged homes and cars are lost to damage. When I saw the damage to school it put my art show into perspective. It seemed rather a small matter compared to the rest of the damage. My art room only had one broken window which was a miracle. All the windows on that side of the main school-house were busted out but not the door and window where the art was stored. Water did get in and flood around some of the sculpted art chairs but I put them all up on tables and wiped them all down. On Tuesday morning I went to school to help clean and check on the chairs they were all fine. I cleaned up all the mess in my room, mopped up all the water and made sure my room was ready for class on Friday when we reopen. All the while I was praying and giving thanks that our little school was okay enough to reopen.
Many of my gym friends lost cars and yard items. Their homes are trashed and windows are out. I watched as they tried to clean, make calls and take care of their kids. Wylie schools were closed Tuesday. Our school will be closed on Wednesday so we can continue to repair the school and make it safe. I’ve heard from so many people how everyone was checking on each other. I watched as people came to our little school and helped in the dark of the night to patch things up and make it secure for the night. There were people helping clear things off the road just minutes after the storm. Wylie showed their true colors Monday evening by supporting each other. In this last picture you can see my son’s red car. It is there waiting to be picked up because of the hail damage to his car from the hail storm a week ago. $$$$$$$$ are dancing in my head because we have a big deductible.
Community is a place you can feel safe, loved and needed. On the night of this storm you got that feeling in the small town of Wylie Texas and days after. Helping someone is so easy and can fill your heart with joy. If you know someone affected by a storm, death or any life altering event do something for that person or family. Buy them a gift card for dinner, take them dinner you made, offer to clean for them or even give rides for family. Anything can help someone in a time of trouble. Giving is simple and easy all you have to do is open your heart to help. Words are sometimes heavy and hard to say but acting on your hearts desire to help says a lot without speaking. I was so tired when I went to bed last night I don’t remember laying down, and that was a great feeling to wake up to. It’s gonna be a great Blue Happy Day to clean up a little more. Go out and give someone a Blue Happy day just by helping them out.
