FAR AWAY FROM HOME

While it may seem like life here in the sunny, 80-degree Garden of Eden is idyllic, our thoughts these days are with the people at home. Tom’s brothers and sisters who are also spending March in Arizona with us are from Denver, East Grand Forks, and Fargo. And if you have been watching the Weather Channel for the past few days, three of the cities in the news are Denver, East Grand Forks, and Fargo.

Tom’s two sisters and their husbands from Denver have been watching the blizzard news, knowing that their houses are being buried in a pile of snow. Tom’s brother and his wife from Fargo are on their cell phone with their children every day, getting updates on the sandbagging progress around their home in the Rose Creek addition. Tom’s other sister and her husband live right on the Red River on the Moorhead side and have been sandbagging for days. And Tom’s oldest sister from East Grand Forks is having flashbacks of the 1997 flood that submerged her basement in ten feet of water, right up to the top step on the main floor.



The nursing home where my father lives was bracing yesterday for 18 evacuated nursing home residents from the Fargo-Moorhead area, precipitating a move for him to a different room. It’s not easy to be almost 92 years old and be moved 100 feet down the hall, until you remember that the old folks from Fargo are being bused 100 miles during the evacuation.

Luckily, we don’t have family living in the shadow of Mt. Redoubt in Alaska or in the tornado zone of Louisiana. So in addition to our trip to Arizona, we’re experiencing a guilt trip, thinking of everyone back home dealing with the elements in the character-building upper Midwest.