April 30, 2011

Dear Mother,

I suppose this pervasive sadness is normal when you've lost someone who means so much to you. Sometimes it interests me how tied in my thinking was to you. Tuesday I went to P.F.Changs and ordered the honey walnut shrimp that you liked. I always brought half back to you. Well, I ate half and that's all I could eat. I got a to-go box and brought the other half back, but I never could eat it. When we go back I'll order it again and this time I will eat it.

I keep cataloguing things in my head to tell you. So, let me start with the terrible tornadoes that hit Wednesday. Over 200 people were killed in Alabama. One big monster-sized tornado over a mile wide stayed on the ground from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham, and did tremendous damage in both places. McFarland Boulevard is gone and the University Mall is pretty well gone as well. West Birmingham was devastated and then Fultondale was hit. The tornado went north of Warrior, although Warrior had a lot of uprooted trees and some house damage from an earlier tornado that went through Wendesday morning. (We were okay on Baker Street.) It hit Cullman and wiped out about a block and a half. We were without electricity for a couple of days, and Alan came to stay with us because all of Madison County will be without power for 5 or 6 days. I'm thinking that you're having a much more peaceful and productive existence in Heaven.

Bub got a cataract removed Wednesday - in fact we were in the Eye Foundation while the storm was raging. By the time he was ready to come home we had some clear weather, followed by vicious weather again later. He can see 20/20 now, and seems quite satisfied with his surgery.

I'll call it a night for now. I got a steriod shot today for my cold, which was turning into laryngitis. The laryngitis is pretty well gone, but I'm still to wide awake to sleep.

Love from my heart,
Anne