A Year After

A Year After 

Autumn @ Cunningham Park, St. Johns Hospital in background

 May 22nd, 20012 marked the one year anniversary of the single most worst day of my life.  If you follow any sort of national news, you no doubt would have heard about the tornado that ripped threw Joplin, Mo. on that date in 2011.  That was the day my ten year old daughter and her mother were picked up while inside their car & thrown a city block onto what was left the Pepsi building (My daughter was ejected from the car after a few rolls and thrown another estimated thirty feet). 
After a sixteen day stay in the hospital, 5 surgeries and a ton of peoples well wishes, donations and help, she finally started to re-live life.  This story is mainly about her.  But I also want to take a little bit of the time to talk about a few other things.  We will get to them later. 
Autumn was ten when she was in the tornado.  She was covered head to toe in cuts and bruises.  This has all been documented in my first blog "My Survivor".  Since then she has rebounded unlike anything I could ever have hoped for.  Her scars are smoothing out and her leg is starting to have a somewhat normal texture.  Her leg will never look normal, the amount of meat and skin loss prevents that, but compared to what it looked like, it looks wonderful.  If you remember, her leg had a chunk of meat removed all the way to the muscle.

20 days short of a yr. & her wound looks awesome.

She doesn't let the scar stop her from wearing shorts.  She knows its a battle scar and wears it with the pride of a real warrior.  A few days after the storm, while in the hospital, she did and interview for a book about the tornado A few days later she did another interview for a writer with the Associated Press.  Since those two interviews she has not spoke of it again.  She wont even talk to me about it.  Now, when there is a thunderstorm, she finds herself sleeping with mom or dad (depending on where shes at).  This is a totally new behavior.  She never slept with us as an infant, but I don't have a problem with it.

At the interview with the AP writer, we got the opportunity to meet Eric Thayer.  He is a professional photographer with Reuters.  Since then he has came back into town twice.  Each time, calling and meeting up with us.  He kind of helped us ease into the anniversary.  Joplin made quite a deal out of the anniversary.  I was hesitant about celebrating, because i still have powerfully negative emotions on the subject, and would rather let them fade. 

Eric contacted me about seeing us, and I set it up at the park we live by.  I didn't tell Autumn about it, that way Eric might be able to catch her in a candid moment.  After talking for a while I told him he should get a picture in front of the Joplin city limit sign.  I'm thinking he doesn't get asked to be photographed often, since he's always the one taking pictures. He jumped on the offer and we drove around until we found a sign.  We all took turns getting shot in front of the sign.  When we got back to the cars we said our good byes, Eric was off to cover the NATO summit in Chicago, and we had to get home to cook dinner.

Eric Thayer

The next day we hit Cunningham Park.  The whole park has been completely redesigned and is beautiful.  As awesome as it is, they aren't done.  As I write this, there are plans to make a walking bridge over the road to the sight of St. John's hospital, which will be tore down and a museum and other goodies will be.

 

Fountain @ Cunningham park.

The miracle of the human spirit.

The one person I really haven't spoke much of is my oldest daughter Karya. During the tornado she was at the collage at her boyfriends graduation ceremony.  They both remained safe.  Not all the students that graduated were.  One student who graduated was pulled from a pond after being tossed a very far distance.  I was lucky, Karya aided in the finding of Melody and Autumn. 
This year Karya graduated.  She graduated from the temporary Joplin High School, located at the mall.  We jokingly call it Mall High.  I was one of the few people she was allowed to invite to the ceremony.  Among the guest speakers were Jay Nixon and President Obama.  Both of which gave awesome speeches.  Nixon's being extremely powerful.  It was almost surreal sitting there watching my girl walk across the stage, turning into a woman before my eyes. 
It's a weird circle I live in.  On one hand I have a daughter that that was almost killed by the tornado, and on the other I have a daughter that just so happened to graduate on the one year anniversary and attended Mall High.

Karya & Autumn

Karya & Autumn

2012 Joplin High School graduating class.

The only real negative I can report is FEMA.  They completely dropped the ball on my ex-wife.  They don't believe she was in the tornado, and deny her any kind of help.  They won't accept our pictures of her car, and since it was stolen from the Pepsi lot, she can't prove anything.  Now she has nerve damage in her arm and has lost partial use of it.  She still doesn't own a car. 

Autumn @ her first violin concert.

Autumn riding her X-mas gift.

Autumn riding in the park. (photo by E. Thayer)

Now that we have passed the one year mark, I am hoping we can leave it be until at least the ten year anniversary.  I think the people of Joplin deserve that much.  So, with this report, don't expect any more tornado blogs.  I am retiring the subject. 

(Unless i write a poem, lol)