Day 5

Today was a good day... I suppose. I don't know quite what to think. It started off fairly normally, with me doing a lot of follow up calls and paperwork and whatnot. In the afternoon, though, I followed up with a family which lived in the area that I visited yesterday. There was a mother with her two children who lived an a doublewide which was hit by an EF-4 tornado. The home was gone, there was nothing but absolute destruction. In this home the mother was killed and one of her sons was critically injured. The grandparent of this boy and mother of the woman were left to pick up the pieces. Without going into too much detail, as I can't and shouldn't, this was an unbelievably bad situation. Coming into this I struggled a great deal with what to do; what do I do for a family who has experienced this kind of loss? I got to the hospital where the boy was and where is grandparents had been 24/7 for the past 11 days I started speaking with his grandmother, and there I sat for the next 2 hours. I just listened, something which I think the grandmother truly needed. It was one of the most bittersweet feelings imaginable. I was in a room with such unbelievable pain but I was bringing them some sort of peace, even if it was the most minuscule amount. I provided them with the information about getting financial assistance and getting counseling for their family, but more importantly I listened. I guess there isn't much else to say, it was certainly a special and memorable, but definitely not happy, day.