"Everything's okay, we're all okay, we just don't have houses anymore."

These are the words of comfort from a tornado victim I saw tonight on the news. Most of you are aware of the tornadoes that ripped through Rutherford County, TN, worse than any we've had here in most people's memories. Brandon and I were totally oblivious, until the barrage of phone calls from our family in Marshall County began rolling in. Our home, and neighborhood, are blessedly unscathed, but the news from Murfreesboro is not so cheerful.

The neighborhood hit hardest had several homes ruined, roofs ripped off, houses moved from their foundations, some totally flattened. Flattened. Just that word makes me shiver.

The story that has me writing now is about a young family of three whose home was flattened. The mother, Cory, and baby, Olivia, 9 weeks old, were both killed, and the father has been badly injured. A neighbor was interviewed about her own experience, and she said as the roof was blown off her own house, she heard someone out in her yard moaning. Cory was pulled out of the safety of her own home and tragically was alive as it happened.

Was Olivia ripped from her mother's arms? Was Cory aware that her daughter had died? Could she see her? Were they in a safe place in their home, or were they like my little family, blissfully unaware that anything was going on? Would it have mattered, since the damage to their home was so devastating? Was she moaning in her own pain, or because she lost her daughter?

And her husband. That's the most tragic of all. How do you go on living when the person with whom you've built your life has just been torn from your arms, maybe literally? And the tiny being you've both built your hopes and dreams on? My heart aches for him, and my prayers are for him tonight.

I try to keep the tone of my blog more cheerful, and more personal, and typically I would switch the channel to something more cheerful. But tonight the mother and wife in me hurts. So I glue my eyes to the TV, and I hear the most cheerful lady comforting her neighbor. "Everything's okay, we're all okay, we just don't have houses anymore." At least that's all anybody else lost.