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BY ERIKA ANDERSON
Staff Writer
PEACHTREE CORNERS--It has been over a year since a devastating tornado
ripped through metro Atlanta, forever changing the lives of those in its
harrowing path.
Homes have been rebuilt, lives have been slowly put back together, and
today, in the midst of this Easter season, many of those most severely affected
by the tornado, such as David Donahue and others in his Cedar Corners
subdivision, have experienced a resurrection of their own.
Donahue, adult enrichment coordinator at All Saints Church in Dunwoody, will
never forget the night of April 9, 1998, when shortly after midnight, the
violent tornado swept through his neighborhood, sending seven trees crashing
through his home, including one that fell on his son Patrick’s room and
two that fell on his daughter Amy’s room. Donahue’s house was known
as the “miracle house” in the subdivision because, in spite of
devastating damage, no one was hurt.
A year later, Donahue’s house is new. The grass still has not grown
back, and trees that once shaded the house are gone, blown away like twigs in
the tornado. But Donahue counts his blessings.
“It’s different, but in a lot of ways, it’s better,” he
said. “The newness makes new experiences. So often we get lulled into
being comfortable and our zones of comfort are not expanded.”
Donahue said that he feels fortunate after hearing horror stories of many of
his neighbors who were taken advantage of by contractors and insurance
companies.
“One of the workers found Patrick’s wallet with $60 in it and
brought it to me,” he said. “That could have easily been pocketed.
Admittedly, I was lucky.”
Donahue said that there were times when the rebuilding process was
frustrating and tedious, but he knew he had to get through it, without blaming
God.
“It happened to me, so what can I do?” he said. “I can
complain bitterly or I can accept it and learn from it, and by doing that,
I’m a better person.”
The Donahue family spent several months after the tornado, living in hotels
and homes of family members. They moved back into their home in October with a
new appreciation for life and for each other.
“The closeness comes not only through the shared experience, but
through the realization of the value of the other person,” he said.
“We lose track of a common reality we have as a family, and in that way,
it’s transforming. We now realize what life would be like without the
other person.”
Donahue said one of the hardest things for him was to accept the help and
support of the many people who offered.
“I think it’s hard for an individual to learn that we not only
have to give, but that it is equally as important to learn how to
receive,” he said. “That was very hard for me. You think of yourself
as sufficient, but you realize that you can’t do it alone.”
Donahue said that from this experience, his faith has grown not in a
“quantitative way, but in a qualitative way it’s changed.”
“The message of Scripture is absolute trust, not just trust, but
absolute trust,” he said. “I have qualitatively begun to move from
trust as I knew it before to absolute trust because of the idea that God, even
in the worst conditions, will never, ever abandon you.”
Throughout the year, Donahue has learned a lot about himself.
“I am more resilient than I thought I was, but I’m not as tough as
I thought I was,” he said. “I know now that my existence is not in my
work, it’s not in my studies or in my programs, but in my family. We can
lose sight of that very easily and take that for granted.”
Donahue jokes that he is now able to grow a vegetable garden in his yard,
something that he could never do before with the many trees that shaded it, and
he humbly calls the experience of the past year “wonderful.”
“I’ve learned that everything is replaceable or fixable, except
for people,” he said. “What’s important in life is not the
couch. My wife and children are so much more important to me in their value as
an entity.”
One year ago, interviewed just three days after the tornado hit his home,
changing his life forever, Donahue told The Georgia Bulletin that he
believed he would experience a resurrection. He now knows that he has.
“You are alive in a different reality, you’re not the same.
I’m the same, but I’ve changed, I’m a different person.
That’s the resurrection,” he said. “My house is brand new and
from that there will be new experiences. Newness brings new excitement, new
adventure and new hope.”
A year ago, as the violent winds of the tornado descended upon his home,
John Tarpley was kneeling on the floor of his bathroom praying with his wife
and two young children. When it was over, Tarpley found anything but calm after
the storm. Eight trees had slammed into his house, tearing the roof off the
master bedroom, knocking down walls and destroying his carpet and ceilings.
Tarpley, a parishioner of All Saints Church, found himself having to rebuild
the home where he and his wife, Pamela, had lived since 1989, wall by wall.
“The first two weeks right after the tornado were the hardest,” he
said. “I thought ‘This is too big a chore. We’re never going to
get through this.’ But we just did it day by day.”
Tarpley said that each day they relied on God’s grace and the support
of others.
“The support has been wonderful from the church and there is a sense of
camaraderie between neighbors that we never had before,” he said. “We
have friends who have really just gone the extra mile for us. People really
come together during a time like this and you realize that most people do care
about each other and there are really good-hearted people in this world.”
Like Donahue, Tarpley learned a lot about himself.
“I learned I’m a little more resilient than I thought I was,”
he said. “I never would have thought I could go through something like
this, but you buck up and you do whatever you have to do to get your family
through. I think my wife and I have been successful with that. You’re not
the master of your fate and you have to be resilient or you get knocked
down.”
The Tarpleys moved back into their home in July after living with
Pamela’s mother for several months.
“The biggest challenge has been the yard. It’s a slow process
since it was just so torn up. We lost trees that were 15 to 20 years old,”
he said. “There has also been a challenge to us emotionally, in just the
spring thunderstorms. All of us are much more conscious of weather than ever
before.”
Tarpley said that his faith in God was very strong to begin with and that he
“never succumbed to blaming God.”
“My home is beautiful, my family is healthy,” he said.
“Except for a few trees I have everything I could ask for. My faith in God
is very secure.”
Tarpley said that his advice to anyone who has to go through such a
traumatic experience would be to accept the offers of help from others.
“You’re not alone. People will help you,” he said. “Look
to your church, look to your friends. Most of the time you don’t even have
to ask. People will just help out of the goodness of their hearts.”
Sory Govin and her family, parishioners of St. Patrick’s Church in
Norcross where she is on the staff, were also overwhelmed by the support of
friends and family.
The Govin home, severely damaged by the tornado, was bulldozed and rebuilt
from the ground up.
Govin, director of religious education for children in kindergarten through
sixth grade at St. Patrick’s, said that she tries to “concentrate on
the positive.”
“It’s extremely overwhelming to deal with all the feelings,”
she said. “It’s the biggest blessing that’s ever taken place
because it’s given me a chance to detach from material things. So often
our feelings, our emphasis and our efforts are placed on material things. I now
look at my life in a much more spiritual way.”
Govin said that the tornado and its aftereffects made her realize the need
to live life to the fullest.
“I would have continued on just as normal,” she said. “But
now I take advantage of every moment and I don’t take anything for
granted.”
Like others in her neighborhood, Govin relied heavily on her faith to get
her through the difficult times.
“I didn’t realize how strong my faith was. I was holding on so
tightly to my faith that I let everything else just fly away,” she said.
“My house may have blown away, but my faith didn’t.”
The Govins lived in an apartment until their new house was completed in late
October. She said they were never without meals or support from friends and St.
Patrick’s parishioners.
“There was an overwhelming amount of people who came with their
sympathy and their prayers and whatever they could do to help us,” she
said. “On one side it was an incredible outpouring of care and concern and
love, but on the other side it was hard to learn to deal with our own feelings.
I knew that I was seeing the face of God in everyone who said, ‘How are
you doing? How can we help you?’ It was very much a blessing and really
what helped us through the whole thing.”
She and her husband, Michael, and their two teenage daughters have a
stronger family bond as a result of the shared trauma.
“In a sense it has brought us together, but it has been a painful
journey in that we all experienced the realization of what happened at
different times, so we were grieving at different times. We have spent the
whole year off and on dealing with it,” she said. “It has brought us
closer in prayer. We pray as a family every night, which is something we tried
for years and years but could never accomplish. If nothing else, we are just
thankful for God giving us another chance.”
Govin, too, sees herself in the midst of a resurrection.
“I had to die totally and completely and there is a lot of my old self
that was left in that mess,” she said. “Right now I see life with new
eyes and with new hopes. I have experienced God in a very personal way in the
love and care of others and I hold onto his promise that no matter what, he
always holds on to us.”
The common phrase “home is where the heart is” has taken on new
meaning for Govin and her family.
“We have a new house, but it’s just a house where we go and sleep,
where we go in and out,” she said. “We carry our home in our hearts
and wherever we go, that is home as long as we have each other.”
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