Time plays cruel tricks and laughs at us in the process. Has it really been six years to the day that this picture was taken? Yeah, six not-so-very-long years — but, a lifetime ago nonetheless.

She had just turned 81 years old and the family was taking her to a little steakhouse on the west side of Tulsa, kind of a Sizzler clone. Everyone ate too much and we all talked and enjoyed each others’ company. It had been my pleasure to be with her the year before on her 80th, and I had been determined to be there again the following year — funny how one “senses” when time is getting short.

A day or so later we went to the barbecue joint just outside Drumright, Joseph’s, and had a great meal. Then we returned to an amazing night of Oklahoma storms. A couple of years ago I awoke to the low sounds of thunder and that resulted in my writing this remembrance:

Three years ago last month, just after August 22nd, my mother’s birthday, was the last time that I can remember listening and waiting with much anticipation for a lightening storm. We had gone to Drumright, OK to have some Bar-B-Que and had returned just in time to see the threatening clouds building in the north-west sky. As often happens in Oklahoma in August, the super-heated air of summer was being overrun by a cold front off the Rockies, and thunderhead cloud tops rising up to 60,000 ft. were being flat topped by the upper atmosphere hyper-winds. They were also causing a lot of up and down air flow inside the behemoths, which was causing the buildup of a tremendous amount of static electricity just waiting for some way to come to ground. Hey, I’m not Mr. Wizard, but I do remember some of this cloud stuff.

The sky had taken on a rather sickly-greenish hue, and the bottoms of the clouds looked quilted, cottage cheese like — not a good sign. But my Aunt Juanita and Uncle Daniel had a below-ground storm shelter just a couple of blocks away, so it didn’t seem too threatening.

I could smell the ozone in the air from all the lightening.

There it was — the low rolling sound of distant thunder! I poured myself a soda in a plastic tumbler and went outside to the tiny front porch, sat in the porch swing and watched the storm roll in.

It got louder — a lot quicker than I thought it would. I could see the lightening now as it streaked across the sky. It was as if God himself was creating a most unbelievable mixed media experience — I guess he was at that. Intense white-hot flashes of bolt lightening shot from the heavens to penetrate the earth leaving gray artifacts on my retinas. I blinked to clear my vision with only a small amount of success. CRAAAAAAAAASSSSSHHHHHHHHHH! BOOOOOOM! Man, that was close! More sky-to-sky spider webbing of flashes, followed by sharp cracks and sizzles. My God, the colors! Even stronger smell of ozone. This was getting close!

Time to turn on the TV and see just what we were dealing with. Mom had watched her show and gotten herself ready for bed. It’s only 9pm, but she’s 81 and doesn’t stay up late, actually she never did. Early to bed and all that. The Doppler radar reports showed that this storm was huge, and was going to not only last for quite a while, but that the most intense cells were going to pass right over us there in Oilton. Great . . . I do like a bit of storm, but this didn’t look so good. And there was rotation showing up in some spots and that was coming our way too.

I guess you can figure out that a tornado didn’t spirit us away to the land of Oz. Heck, I already live there! So I watched a bit of tube, had some ice cream, called the wife, then retired to bed with a book. I’m lying in the little bed in the little second bed room of my Mom’s little house, the only light on in the house. I could hear the gentle sound of a light snore in Mom’s room.

BLAAAAAAAAMMMMM! The loudest thunderclap of the entire evening followed an incredibly bright flash, then the light went out. No sound at all — everything was out. I heard her get up and saw the beam of a small flashlight. I got up and went into her room. We sat on the edge of her bed and looked out the window into the seriously black night.

It began to hail — a lot! Marble sized chunks of ice were hammering against the metal roof of her car port, which I had helped her pick out the birthday before, so that the new paint job on her little 80’s something Ford wouldn’t be destroyed by sun and such — like this hail!

We talked a bit, about what I can’t remember now, but it was good. Finally the hail stopped, the rain let up, and the electrical storm moved on toward Tulsa, where it did a good bit of damage. Tiredness overcame us and we both went back to bed. When I woke up, the electrical crews were already out and fixing the transformer on the pole next to Mom’s little house. It hadn’t been hit directly by the lightening, but the strike was close enough to trip the transformer’s breaker or something. We had power early that AM.

When I packed and left that morning I didn’t know that it would be the last time I would see her when she wasn’t near death in a hospital bed. As always, she stood on that little porch, with a tear in her eye, waving goodbye to her son who was headed back to California. Why, she could never understand. It’s good that we don’t know what is going to happen, otherwise I could never have left her that day.

A funny thing about that night. When I was sitting up with her — looking out at the hail, the rain, the flashes of lightening — it was as if 45 years had never happened. I was 5 years old again.

I awoke this AM to the low sonic vibrations of distant thunder — and to memories . . . I sure do miss her.

I miss her more than ever. She would have been 87 today.

Happy birthday, Mom . . .

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