Yesterday, I began sharing my story from May 20, 2013. I was at work at a junior high in Moore, Oklahoma when an EF5 tornado ravaged the community. I have not shared my story in depth since 2013. It is my hope that by sharing my story, I can shed some light on PTSD and trauma, and hopefully provide comfort and hope to anyone else who has experienced either. To read Part One, click here.
Part Two
That afternoon the day after I was still in shock. My mom had me go back to their house, and I immediately went to the back guest bedroom and laid down on the bed to try to take a nap. My brother came to sit with me. I wasn’t ready to be alone yet. I remember laying there, staring out the window, and I asked him, “did you think I was going to die?” “No,” he said, “but I did think you would be badly, badly hurt.” A few days later he drove down to Moore to get what was left of my car. Somehow still drivable, he drove it to the dealership where a few days later I’d go clear it out and order another one – the exact same make and model. I didn’t care what color. I just needed a car.
I stayed at my parents’ house for about a week after that terrible Monday. We split our time between home and the hospital. Any time I was at home, I had the TV on. I remember my mom coming home late one night from the hospital to find me crying in the living room watching coverage on CNN. “You need to stop watching it. I need you to be stronger than this,” I remember her telling me. At the time that statement just made me more angry. Couldn’t she see I was grieving? But I soon got it. My mom is the strongest woman I know, and she was sending me a very strong message then – “I need you. You are stronger than this moment. Be strong with me.” I turned off the TV and went to bed.
That following Saturday I met up with some fellow teachers to help clear the neighborhood around the school. I helped a family literally scrape what was left of their home down to the foundation. When I looked to the east from that slab, I could see our school; when I looked west, I could see the Moore Warren theater on the opposite side of I-35. The family’s brand new car was wrapped around a neighbor’s tree. The family? They were just thankful to be alive. I remember going to the drug store after and walking along the aisles thinking, “what could I possibly need that I don’t already have inside my fully in-tact home?” I felt guilty to still have everything, when so many lost so much.
My dad coded the following week. Passed out during physical therapy. We rushed to be by his side, and I’d never seen my mom look so scared. He would be alright, too much exertion too soon. That’s the Busey way. By June he would be moved to a rehabilitation center to try to learn to walk again as my mom had their house renovations finished up. They had decided the year before to go ahead and make the home handicapped accessible, not realizing the significance of that decision back then. The journey to recovery was only just beginning, for all of us.
The days and weeks dragged on and my family and the city of Moore settled into what everyone loves to call “the new normal.” We had a day where all employees of Moore Public Schools got together at a local church. We had a day set aside for students to come pick up their belongings at Moore High School and to say our “summer goodbyes.” I hugged them tight. Some had lost everything. Some would go to different schools the next year, so many being shuffled around and displaced as the city worked to clean up and rebuild. Anderson Cooper conducted interviews; President Obama toured the destruction; Ellen DeGeneres donated money to the teachers of the two elementary schools that had been leveled. NBC aired a benefit concert hosted by Blake Shelton, with performances from people like Luke Bryan and Usher. The world was watching. Twenty-four people were killed on May 20, including seven children who were huddled together in Plaza Towers Elementary School; 212 were injured.
And life kept moving along; time kept passing. This is the part where I wrap up the story with “and we all tried to live happily ever after,” right? My dad eventually got to go home after weeks in rehab. We went back to work in August as construction began on a new gymnasium. And by May, 2014 everyone had adjusted to this “new normal” and life continued on…right? I wish it was that simple.
I can’t speak for every person who survived that day, and I wouldn’t want to. People grieve and process life in vastly different ways. I am only sharing my experiences, my story. And what I know about May 20, 2013 is that no matter how much time passes, no matter where life takes me, I will never forget that day.
What I remember most about that year following the tornado was the anger I felt. I was angry at myself for feeling like a victim. I didn’t lose my house, a loved one, a pet. I lost my car and my favorite planner. I was angry about losing that planner. My classroom had flooded and anything on the floor had to be thrown out. Somehow my planner got thrown out with the damage. It was so irrational, but I grieved for that stupid red planner. It had three years worth of lessons in it. I think it symbolized more than just losing a planner – it symbolized my life before May 20.
I was angry that my dad was in a wheelchair. I didn’t understand how something so rare and so random could happen to him, my dad. I was angry that we couldn’t have father-daughter dates like we used to. I would get angry any time I saw a father-daughter dance at a wedding. My dad is strong, and brave, and healthy. But that doesn’t take away the anger I felt for that first year or so at adjusting to this “new normal” where he was fighting as hard as he could to walk again. It wasn’t fair. Nothing about May 20, 2013 was fair, for anyone.
I was angry that our school got overlooked. So because our school wasn’t leveled, somehow we didn’t matter? Most people didn’t even know our school was in the destruction path. Our gym and field house were completely destroyed. Our portables, gone. We did have teachers lose everything that day. The main building did have structural damage, though still standing. My exterior wall had shifted two inches off the foundation. They caulked the gap between my exterior wall and the rest of the building. My room flooded every time it rained, as did most of the southeastern side of the building. The guttering system had been ripped off the roof, along with the air conditioning units. For almost the entire school year, I couldn’t use up to three feet up to my exterior wall in my room because that’s where the water pooled when it rained. I came back from a professional day one day to see my room flooded, and the carpet ripped up. I was so angry that my students had to endure that. My assistant principal let me yell, scream, cry, cuss – it wasn’t fair; and then she hugged me as I wept. We spent the year listening to the banging and hammering on the roof as construction on the building went on as we tried to take standardized tests that following spring.
The following year I kept getting sick. I had chronic sinus infections, my asthma was horrible. We had a new principal and assistant principal by that time. I tried to explain to them both that it was mold from the water damage from the tornado; I’d run my own little lab experiment with some petri dishes and sent them off to a lab to run tests. The response I got? “Well you do live in Oklahoma. We have allergens here.” Thank you for your support, good sir. My co-worker’s classroom became infested with black widow spiders. You know what black widows love? Cold, damp spaces. You could push on her wall and hear the popping sounds – the entire building had shifted that day on May 20. Anger. How could we be expected to work and our students to learn in conditions like that?* But we pressed on.
I have been to therapy twice now for my PTSD from that day. I first went just a few weeks after May 20. I remember standing in my mom’s kitchen, “I think I need to go back to therapy.” I was terrified to say those words out loud; nervous about how she would react. “I think that isn’t a bad idea.” Whew. I don’t know why I had doubts of her support, she having been the one who first talked me into therapy when I was first diagnosed with depression at age 20. The therapy helped. It felt good to talk about it. I can’t quite remember for how long I went, maybe a year? Two years? Eventually, though, I did stop going. I was in a good place, a strong place. Time had passed.
To be continued…
*As far as I know, the school has been completely renovated and restored. I left in 2015 so I can’t speak for the current conditions, but they did complete renovations by the time I left. This is not meant to be an insult toward Moore Public Schools, as I know they did what they could for us during the rebuilding process. I am simply sharing my perspective in the years that followed before I left. I have nothing but the highest respect for the administration and employees of MPS.
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