Is
this a drill or is this real?
The sirens sound. The teacher signals the students
to line up fast yet safely. The halls are filled with students, teachers, and
administration one following after the other seeking the ark of safety. Duck
and Cover, Duck and Cover! The sirens sound further and further away as the
winds, rain, and sounds of flying debris drown out its warning. Is this a drill
or is this real? Instead of the laughing, chatter, and excitement associated
with a tornado drill as the siren had been associated with being saved by the
bell you hear screaming, crying, flying objects, and scurrying. You see
children balled up under desks, teachers covering students, you see blood, you
see horror, you see fear. The comfort of a drill when the teachers are able to
report back to the principal that all the students are accounted for; this time
all are not accounted for. In the
military when there are casualties and injuries as long as the person is
identified they are considered accounted for. As the days increase the news
reports that the students are accounted for; some dead, some alive, some
injured but all accounted for. Meanwhile the teachers sit back and play the
drill over in the heads as each student being accounted for are alive, are
well, are prepared to return to the classroom to finish up the school day
realizing that their being saved by the bell had come to an end.
Those alive return to their homes with no house.
Some parents have students while some don’t. Some students have parents while some
don’t. All over the world we watch, we
pray, we give, we reflect . We depend on the news to paint a picture that truly
does the disaster no justice as a community sits under rubble and emergency
responders are on post to prevent looting. As national and local officers come
together to aid the victims in their distress, we all wait and hope for a day
of restoration, we hope for rebuilding efforts to be expedited, we hope hearts
become mended and a gleam of understanding is retrieved as families find bibles
in the rubble and pictures unharmed by the disaster. We hope for schools to be
rebuilt and the halls become filled once again with teachers, administration,
and students lined one behind the other gleaming at being saved by the bell.
Leaving you
with the written words of Oscar Hammerstein II and Music
by Richard Rodgers:
Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin'
down the plain,
And the wavin' wheat can sure smell sweet
When the wind comes right behind the rain.
Oklahoma, ev'ry night my honey lamb and I
Sit alone and talk and watch a hawk makin' lazy circles in the sky.
We know we belong to the land
And the land we belong to is grand!
And when we say--Yeeow! A-yip-i-o-ee ay!
We're only sayin' You're doin' fine, Oklahoma! Oklahoma--O.K.
And the wavin' wheat can sure smell sweet
When the wind comes right behind the rain.
Oklahoma, ev'ry night my honey lamb and I
Sit alone and talk and watch a hawk makin' lazy circles in the sky.
We know we belong to the land
And the land we belong to is grand!
And when we say--Yeeow! A-yip-i-o-ee ay!
We're only sayin' You're doin' fine, Oklahoma! Oklahoma--O.K.
