a minor miracle, as miracles go

I felt the bright light before I turned slightly and saw it – a brilliant, intense, dazzling flash behind me in my driveway or was it in the front yard next to the driveway? I’ll never know.

The loud bang that followed the light shook the ground where I stood in the carport – I’d never heard thunder that loud before, a sound that traveled with me as I realized how close I had been to harm and hurried to climb the three steps from the carport to the back kitchen door.

What a frightening interruption for a fun day with Pretty who drove me to get a haircut and then pedicures for both of us in a ritual we marked on our calendars every five weeks. Leaving the television coverage from our house during Wimbledon’s ladies’ singles semi-finals, though, today added drama as we watched from our cell phones when we could steal a glance while Esther worked her magic on our feet. We were giddy in Eli’s salon when Anisimova surprised the favorite Sabalenka to fight for a chance in the finals.

Pretty lowered the windows in our car when we got home and told me to make sure to raise them again in case of rain. As an afterthought she placed two antique dolls on the hood of our car and asked me to watch out for them because they needed to dry from the rain yesterday when they were in the bed of her work truck during a deluge. I assured her I was on top of any precipitation.

I needed to work in my office this afternoon and barely noticed the drizzle from my office windows when the rain began. I jumped up from my chair and told my dog Charly I needed to go put the windows up outside. She was hunkered down in the hallway.

As I turned on the ignition to start the car, the rain began to fall with more force. By the time I left the car and closed the door, I was drenched from my short hair to my happy toes. It was a humdinger of a storm that blew up in seconds. I almost forgot the two little dolls on the hood of the car, but I turned to reach for them and found they were already as wet as I was…and that’s when the lightning struck behind me.

priceless

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A minor miracle as miracles go, but someone in the great somewhere looked around and said, Nah, let’s leave the old girl alone – she still has some fight left in her.