A Flood of Gratitude

The snow is melting, it's raining, and there are little lakes all around our place, but that isn't the flood I want to tell you about.

BACKTRACK

On Friday, my husband and I had a date night to a local play, Good People. It was just so wonderful. Thought-provoking. Funny. Surprising. It gave us a lot to talk about on the way home. It was one of the best nights of my life because we so thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Perhaps, we more appreciate our time together now. Not that we didn't before, but it's over and above now that it is more rare.

The next day, Saturday, I went shopping and to run errands with my daughter for ingredients to make my lasagna for a Sunday family get-together and a consultation with my vet about Tuffy. Since we were out, I treated my daughter to lunch. It was another lovely moment. My heart was full of happiness.

When I got home, I went to my Sanctuary to deworm Tuffy with the meds my vet had given me for him, but while I was administering the dewormer, there was a loud explosion. 

Tuffy ran out of the room, and I was left to scramble to deal with a broken water pipe that was quickly flooding my sanctuary. I ran out of the barn, toward the house, to shut off the water, but also called my husband as I was running, who was inside the house already. Luckily, he answered and ran downstairs to shutoff the water to the barn.

I didn't take any photos, but imagine the brick and soaked rugs as I hauled the furniture out to the dry breezeway. Then imagine the shop vac, the rugs hung out, and the fans drying the room. 

Poor Tuffy. 

That night, as I was visiting the room one last time, he meowed and meowed and wanted to be comforted that everything was going to be okay. I set up his cozy safe, space, and he settled back into the barn room. There was no furniture in it, and the fans were still whirling, but he settled in front of the heater.

The next day my husband researched what had gone wrong with his attachments, the clamps he had used that had been ineffective, and reworked them with new ones. Everything seems to be working fine now and back to normal.

Believe it or not, I consider this a miracle.

As I was using the shop vac to remove the water, I kept saying thank yous to heaven. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

What perfect timing for the pipes to have come undone, while I was out there for that mere 5 minutes. 

It could have been before. 

It could have been after. 

It would have flooded the entire barn.

Yep, that was a miracle.

We were so preoccupied cleaning the room and responding to the crisis that I had almost forgotten we had tickets to the Symphony where they were expecting a guest pianist, Charlie Albright, playing Rachmaninoff's 2nd. 

We debated even going, but in the end, since we already had the tickets, we hurried out the door and barely made it in time.

So glad we did! What an amazing performance it was! Everyone jumped to their feet for a standing ovation when he was done. For his encore, he played Great Balls of Fire! 

A weekend of beautiful moments, miracles, and a flood, also a miracle in its own right. 

As we were walking to our car from the Fox Theater after the Symphony, it started to rain, and the snow was melting. As we passed one alleyway, I saw the most beautiful scene--leftover Christmas wreaths, snow melting off lights, people happily walking together, like we were.

What a beautiful few days.