This week I am going to highlight my favorite pictures from each of my 5 Joplin Smile! mini sessions. Today I start with the Cooper family. Here they are, four kids and one brave, strong momma:
That’s Wanda in the middle and back. I asked her to tell me about her experience the day of the May 22nd tornado. This is what I learned:
That afternoon she was home with all of her children and she was also babysitting two of her friends children. They were monitoring the weather situation on TV and when they heard the first tornado warning siren go off, Wanda asked her son to unlock the basement to their apartment complex. They grabbed blankets and candles and headed down. Wanda got all six kids settled down there and went back up to keep an eye out. She saw the sky turn grayish green and a heavy gate swinging open and shut like it was super lightweight. The front door of her building would swing open and across the street she could see a tree bending and touching the ground. She got her neighbors to go down to the basement with her. Her mom called and she was able to say that they had taken cover then the phones went silent. They heard a pounding on the door, it took her and her son to be able to open the doors because of the great pressure but the neighbors that lived below them were on the other side and they all hurried in and piled on top of their children.
It was very loud. So loud that the sound would ring in their ears for hours. Shelbi, her 19 year old daughter heard the prayer Wanda was repeating. By the time roar of the storm stopped, everyone was repeating it together. “Lord put your hands on us and friends and neighbors and keep us”. They were all very scared to leave the basement so they stayed down their for about 20 minutes after the tornado had passed.
The adults stepped outside first and were in shock. Everything looked like it had been bombed. Nothing was familiar. There was no phone service. She thought of a friend that lived a 5 minute walk away. It took her 45 minutes to get their because the destruction made it so confusing. She had trouble knowing what street she was on. She couldn’t cry. The feeling was numb and there was no way to explain her emotions. She could only hear the sounds of sirens and see people hugging and standing around the destruction in disbelief. The friend whose children she had been babysitting tried to get back as soon as possible and what was usually a 10 minute drive became a two and a half hour one. Her family spent that night in their trashed apartment. No one really slept. The middle of the day Monday they were told to evacuate. The drive to her brother’s house in Miami was miserable and a very quite one. It took 4 hours. It was pouring rain and the they had busted windows.
On Tuesday morning as her four year old daughter, Kenzi told her that she wanted to go home and play with her toys, the emotions came. Wanda cried for more than a day. On Wednesday, they returned to Joplin to stay with a friend who hadn’t been hit. There was too much to do and they needed to be close. Wanda said the support she received was overwhelming. She met people from all over the world who came to help. She has since found a great house to rent and wants to express her thanks to everyone who she has met ore received help from over the last few months. About her experience she says: “I know one thing, God shut my door but opened a window for me and my family and made us realize that we should be grateful for each and everyday and everything else is just a material thing.”
As an update, Sydni, the sweet 6 year old in purple here in this picture has been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome recently. She began loosing her fingernails last month and they have found a cyst on her right side. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.
