Yep, it’s official (at least for me)! Pearl and I are Best-ies. Pearl is one of the 6 other CDS volunteers on my team and we spent a lot of time together today. We exchanged book titles over breakfast this morning cause we discovered we love the same kind of books, she was just as over-the-top excited as me about the cool sun roof in my rental car, and she’s a PK too (for those of you who know what that is).
We took some time to drive through the hardest hit areas this morning.
Some streets just look like piles and piles of debris with no recognizable house structures left standing. Those spots seem almost less disturbing because its harder to visually accept the reality that there were houses there. Other areas, where the houses still have some sort of form seem to be the hardest to see: people’s cars turned sideways or upside-down in the torn-up garages or seeing a bed in the upstairs of a house that’s been torn in two. It’s easier to clearly see that this was someone’s home. I just keep thinking the same thing over and over looking at this in person: it must have been SO LOUD!! For weather to rip up and twist metal and brick, it just must have been incredibly, unimaginably, seriously loud!
We had a great day working with the kids today. 9am to 7pm makes for a long day! But it was amazing.
Can you guess what they were painting? This is unprompted. As part of the child-lead play experience, we do not ask them questions or verbally encourage them to talk, draw, or play with tornado themes. They do this naturally as part of working through their trauma in the emotionally-safe space we provide. (I know all you child life specialists know this well!)
This little guys was one of my favorites today. I tried to blur his face for privacy-policy reasons.
We did a lot of building block-towers and knocking them down, again and again and again. Then he just wanted to sit together for a while.
Well, lastly I’m sorry to report to all you Rusty fans, there was no Rusty sighting today…and honestly I wouldn’t be sad if there wasn’t one just because I’d probably call him Rusty and his name is really Jim or something! Or maybe he’ll hop in my car “randomly” for the ride back to the airport. Isn’t that how the Red Cross CIA works?