15 The Unexpected Storm

Thursday Aug 20, 09 approximately 5:45 pm I made a detour from work to return a modem to Bell Canada via the post office. Directly opposite the variety store/post office was a factorydirect.ca store. I crossed the street and entered the store looking for a reasonably priced mouse. Purchased the mouse $6.99 (too much) and a camera bag since it was only $5.99! As I was about to leave the store the sky suddenly darkened and opened up with heavy rains and endless fierce sounding crackling thunder and foreboding strikes of lightning.

Normally I walk through the rain however that lightening stopped me in my tracks. I thought of all the silver bracelets I had on my hands – 15 to be exact, (13 on the left, 2 on the right) and I said am not moving till it’s over’. Is silver a conductor I had no idea and didn’t care to test the theory.

One woman beside me in the store suggests I take them off the bracelets and put them in my bag; I looked at her and said, “I will still have them on me”. We waited out the store together for 45 minutes watching lightening touch ground and listening to the thunder growl menacingly. On the radio we learnt that early in the day there was a tornado that touched down in Woodbridge and Vaughan Ontario. No one was prepared and everyone was caught off guard. Children in day camp were scrambling for cover one little 10 year old boy lost his life after the table he hid under collapsed, hundreds of houses were damaged many deemed irreparable the destruction left residence in horrified awe and at a lost as how to deal with the aftermath of the storm.

45 minutes and the sky brighten as if someone turned on the light switch in a darkened room, it stopped raining and life seem to go on as if nothing ever happened (at least in Toronto) and the experience was a figment of one’s imagination.

I thank God I was in a store when it all occurred and not in the middle of the street as it happened with others. Just a few weeks ago a little boy and his mother were struck by ligtening, the little boy was carrying a scooter, he eventually died. Was it a coincidence that I made an unplanned visit to the computer store? I think not, my intention was simply to go to the post office and drop of the modem and go directly home. I thank the powers that be that kept me safe. We have had many storms this year in Toronto, more than I have seen the twenty-four years i've been living here, this one was one of the worst.