HURRICANE

The last few days have been filled with craziness. Crazy busy and crazy worry. When I am crazy worried, it is a blessing to be crazy busy. In all the craziness, I finished my first draft of the fourth Piper and prepared for a writing workshop for educators. I was thankful for the tasks.


I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't pay much attention to Hurricane Ike. The television stayed off. I was busy writing. So when my daughter called me Thursday and said, "This hurricane is worse than we thought. They're closing the campus tomorrow," the fretting began.

I seem destined to encounter hurricanes. I was born during Hurricane Donna. And the years of living in Louisiana and Guam, it would have been unusual not to experience tropical storms. But now I know it is much worse to be far away from a loved one who is experiencing them.

Saturday my daughter and her roommates headed north to the Dallas area. They wanted power and showers. She is fine now.


Still it is difficult to do nothing for her. I think of the days I tried to teach her to look both ways before crossing the street. Sometimes it was just easier to take hold of her hand and help her across.

Last year, when we learned that she'd made it a habit to leave the coffee shop at midnight and walk across campus alone, my husband told her, "I wish you wouldn't do that."

I had a different way of dealing with it. I called her up and said, "Don't walk alone across campus late at night."

Several times in the last few days, my husband reminded me, "She's a grown woman now."

"So," I told him, "she's still my daughter."

"I know," he said, "she's mine, too."