Uh-Oh

I was dumping a load of wood chips and startled by an explosive sound which I attributed to a shotgun, it was just a bit off in the distance.

My cell phone rang and it was Sabrina who'd gone down to Yolie's house, "Mom, a deputy just went speeding by and he turned into Mr. Johnny's driveway."

We live down a dead end dirt road, speeding isn't a daily event.

I got scared real fast, I yelled for Chuy to get out of the meadow where he'd been refilling the lawn mower's tank, and I yelled for Martin to come with me.  I didn't have any specific thought in my head other than I didn't want Chuy shot in the meadow if there were stray bullets.

I'd no more than turned around to run towards Johnny's house when a pulme of smoke came up over the trees which really scared me.

Why did I run towards it?  Yolie asked me that later, "Then something happens to you?  What about us?"  A former parent-less inner child still screaming out.

I don't know, I just react and respond.  25 years in the public school system, it was our responsibility to tend to the issues, to quell the disturbances, to protect the students, to work however was necessary like the daily fights at one school where I'd spent 13 years, or in my nearly 40 years as a parent, I can't just ignore fire, smoke, gun shots, or fights.  I can't just hope everything is OK.

Here at home I have to be ready to respond, hopefully my first course of action is to prevent an incident, but they still occur.

All of my older boys had been startled by the explosive sound, it was way too loud to be a shotgun blast, but everything happened so fast that I never even heard any of the sirens, including the fire truck that finally responded.

Johnny and his wife are my friends, they have two daughters, I was very frightened for them. I can't tell you I'm brave and unafraid.

This old bat can run when scared, lemme tell ya.  I tore the snot out of my ankles getting through the brambles as I darted through the woods with my oldest sons.

One of the work trucks on his property had exploded, flames everywhere,  a First Responder'd gotten there amazingly fast, Johnny's barn didn't burn down, nor did he lose other equipment.

It took me an hour to calm down, to get the adrenaline out of my system, to get my heartbeat back to normal.

A non-traumatized person has an easier time of recovering, of blowing something off, it takes me awhile.  I feel like I'm always scared for either my family or myself, my friends, my neighbors...I dunno...maybe everything?

Thank God Johnny's family was fine.

His wife later laughing, asking me, "Did you think Johnny'd done away with me and set the house on fire?"

No, not really, I'm more afraid of a home invasion, the boogyman, an asteroid, or something equally as uncontrollable.

Tony'd taken the snapshot, later coming through the woods only to get into a squabble with his birth brother over nothing in front of firemen and deputies.