Some of you may have heard about the tornado devastation we had here in Massachusetts this past Wednesday night. It wasn't on the same scale of destruction they had about a month ago in the Midwest and South, but when they start announcing tornadoes are touching down all over the place and they're headed your way, you never know how bad it's gonna be.
I was home all by myself when the news reports started coming in. My mom and sister had gone to visit some family friends in Rhode Island and my dad was at a two-day conference in New York.
All the local TV stations were having this Breaking News coverage and were actually broadcasting pictures of some of the tornadoes as they were touching down. I'd never seen anything like this while it was happening. I mean this was live TV. It was still early afternoon so the pictures were coming in pretty clear. They actually showed the top of this apartment complex being blown off while it was happening!
Man, I was in total freak-out mode. No matter how strong I like to think I am, when something like this is happening, and I'm all alone, and those tornadoes are headed my way, I thought I was gonna have a freakin panic attack. They were giving these time frames of when the tornadoes were going to hit different communities, and then there was the town I live in showing up on the screen! What am I suppose to do? They were saying to get ready to go to a safe place like your basement or cellar. And the TV announcers were all starting to freak out but trying not to show it.
OMG, I'm all alone and the house might be blown away! I might be killed! I just started getting more panicked and totally freaked out! Fuck! This might be the end! I then went from cry-baby mode to total, honest to God panic mode!
I went to make sure we had plenty of batteries for the radio in case we lost electricity. What was I thinking? I mean, if we didn't have batteries was I going to get in my car and go to the store? The wind was already blowing pretty fierce and they were warning everybody to get off the roads. Now, what was I suppose to do next?
I called Matt. I mean, I didn't know what else to do. They let him go home early from work and when he answered his phone, I started screaming and crying like a baby. He said he was already on his way to my place and was about 10 minutes away. ALREADY ON HIS WAY! He said he had already called his family and told them I was all alone. They had everything under control there, so they told him to be safe and make sure I was safe.
When he finally got there I grabbed him and held on tight. I couldn't stop crying. I was honest to God hysterical! Matt just held me, rubbed my back, soothed me, reassured me we were gonna be okay. Then he took complete charge like he had been through all this before (which he hadn't).
He made sure we had plenty of drinking water, so we began filling up these bowls and some empty spring water gallon bottles. The wind was coming from the west, so he got the storm windows down on that side. Then he got all the flashlights and batteries out, along with some candles. He went down to the basement to check things out there and then said we needed to bring the radios and other supplies down. He seemed to be in this total rational action mode. I mean, if I ever needed a man around, it was now! And he was there.
We watched the TV some more, and it looked like the storm was heading a little further south from where we were. At least our town was no longer on the TV screen as a possible target.
Matt NEVER let me out of his sight. I wouldn't have let him anyway, and I think he knew that. The announcers on TV kept saying you never knew if these storms might take a different track, so that got me freaked out even more.
After we did everything that could possibly be done, Matt led me to the basement and we watched TV there. He sat me on the couch and wrapped his very strong arms around me and cupped my head in his strong but gentle hands. He kept kissing me on my head and whispering to me that it was going to be alright. He then put the TV on "mute" so he could watch it, but where I couldn't see it.
Then out of the blue he started calmly telling me this story from his childhood about when his grandparents came to visit when he was like 6 years old. He started telling me all kinds of sweet things about his grandad and grandma, like how he was so excited to see them and what kind of presents they brought him and his brothers. His story went on and on and I learned some things about his childhood he had never told me before. I mean, he was telling all this in such a totally calm and soothing voice, I thought I might fall asleep, but I wanted to hear it all. And his very masculine arms were all around me. I sorta went in this fetal position and realized I was totally calm, like there was no storm going on and nothing to worry about.
The storm kept on a southward path away from us and Matt stayed the whole night. Just me and him. I woke up several times and realized he had undressed me and had me tucked away on the sleeper-sofa with blankets all around me and him laying there with his body cuddling me. The storm eventually passed and I was awakened around 3 AM with him making love to me. God I needed that like never before. But it was different this time. It wasn't like hot, wild, out of control romantic sex like we usually had. This was so loving and gentle and sweet, like he was saying, I am totally here with you. You have nothing to worry about. Nothing.
Do I believe in fairy tales? I do now. At least I believe in Knights in Shining Armor.
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