After the storm

Four or five huge trees in our side yard came down during Sandy and one grazed the house but caused no damage. The electricity was out for less than 24 hours and our small generator kept food in the refrigerator from spoiling. We used camp lanterns to see and cooked leftovers on a one-burner butane stove. It wasn’t nearly as bad as the ice storm that knocked out our power for a week one recent year, or the Nor’Easter that took it down for five days. And of course, it was nothing, nothing, like what people in New York and New Jersey had to face. If anything, the storm taught me gratitude. It taught me how much I take for granted every day – like being able to flush a toilet, or flick a switch and have a room fill with light – and even about things I don’t take for granted, like having a newly chain-sawed stack of wood, thanks to Mother Nature’s pruning. And when I heard what had happened to one of Rick’s customers, it taught me something even bigger. The customer is middle-aged, owner of a large car dealership, well-off and, by Rick’s account, a good human being. During the storm, he was riding in the back seat of his SUV, with his two grown sons in the front, when a 20-inch pine came slamming down and crushed the back of the vehicle. He is now in intensive care at a Boston hospital, in an induced coma. I can’t stop thinking about him or his family, or about the thing that most of us take for granted every day – being alive.