Good riddance, Chedeng!

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I hope that the weather forecasts are accurate this time around. They say Chedeng will no longer hit landfall in the Philippines, and it’s on its way to Japan. Not that I am glad that the land of the rising sun will once again be hit by a disaster, but I am glad it’s not coming our way.

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Still, we’re on edge, not knowing whether the rain will come down again in the middle of the night. If so, we’ll have to secure the car and park it where the floods won’t follow. That’ll have to be my role, if it happens.

We are thankful though, that even when the flood rises to the street we are still relatively safe. Thankful that we don’t get violent tornadoes as that which hit Joplin, MO recently. I can’t imagine living in the shadow of disasters that powerful. Imagine having a beautiful home and having to worry about guarding that on top of keeping yourself and your family safe. Imagine owning artsy contemporary floor lamps and having to insure even that against acts of God or disasters. Crazy.

I know it sounds like I’m trivializing things. People who are really devastated don’t have time to think about things like that, at least not in the moment. As they say, there are more important things. When Ondoy hit us, and in the aftermath, we were very aware of keeping each other safe. More than anything that was important. But we also had to be aware of our things. Save what we could. And in the aftermath, when choosing replacements, we had to think about how those will survive another Ondoy.

Anyway… better stop invoking the name of the typhoon that brought the great flood lest its spirit comes back in another form. It’s time I hit the sack. By the time this post get published, all bedside table lamps in the house would have been switched off. Goodnight Manila, Goodnight World.

Be safe.