9 Minutes
On the afternoon of May 24, 2016, my dad, brother, and I were working on a job about an hour and a half from my home. We were about midway through the job when my brother answered a call from his wife. He looked worried and then his eyes shot up at me. He got off the phone. He said, “Is your family ok?” I answered, “what do you mean?” He told me that his wife said there was a storm in our hometown and tornadoes were expected. I gave a half smirk and said, “There’s been no talk of any storms today.” He replied, “No. This is serious.”
I called Leslie. She answered. She seemed very calm. I asked, “What are you doing? Is there a storm?” She said, “Well, I’m watching the weather, but the news says it’s going to miss us.” I asked her to take Zane, our youngest and two years old at the time, and get in the cellar. Thankfully my oldest two sons were staying with my wife’s parents in another town. She replied in the same way any of us Okies would, “Well, I will if I need to but…you know how much work that is dragging everything down there.” At that point, I loudly said, “Get in the cellar!”
I am the last person to rush to the cellar. I get it. My wife was only emulating my own personal stance on tornado safety. It is always a false alarm. But this time was different. When my sister-n-law called and specifically asked my brother if Leslie was in the cellar, the look on his face relaying the message to me was chilling. I knew this was different. I called Leslie back five minutes later. I said, “Are you in the cellar?” She said, “No, I brought Zane inside and were watching it on tv and…AAAAHHHH ZAC! Something just hit the front of the house! The windows shattered!…” I yelled, “Get in the cellar!” But before I could finish the phone made a weird sound almost like the old dial up internet kind of sound and then went dead. I immediately called back and there was no ring. Just the out of service message. I kept calling…and calling…and calling. Nothing. I remember walking around in a daze for the next several minutes. My mind immediately started to prepare me for the worst. I was trying to fight it by praying, but the thought of my wife and son being gone completely consumed me. I collected myself and walked over to my dad and brother. They looked at me and I could tell by their faces that I did not look good. I very calmly said, “I was on the phone with Leslie, and I think a tornado just hit the house. I lost the phone call, and I can’t get through to her.” My dad looked at my brother and said, “Unhook the trailer and get him home, now!” My brother took off running. I tried to remain calm. All my movements were in slow motion, and I felt extremely dizzy.
I pulled up my phone again and called my neighbor. We lived in a rural area, but our houses were close enough to see each other’s as we both lived on 5-acre plots. He answered. I said, “Hey! Did a tornado hit?” He said, “Yes! It’s gone now but yes!” He continued, “My home is gone, and it looks like half of yours is!” I have chills as I am writing and reliving this right now. I said, “I need you to go find my wife right now!” As I was talking, a county sheriff was jogging up my neighbor’s drive. While I was still on the phone my neighbor yelled to the sheriff, “Hey! We’re fine. Go check on the Kemp’s! I’m on the phone with him. His wife is home!” Sometime later, my phone dinged. It was a text. It was Leslie! It read, “we’re ok.” Oh My Gosh!!!
On the ride home, I went back and looked at the time between when the phone went dead and when Leslie finally texted me. I just knew I was going to see that an hour or so had passed in that time. It was only nine minutes. I could not believe it was only nine minutes. Nine minutes! Those were the most horrific nine minutes of my entire life. I lived the rest of my future out in those nine minutes. In nine minutes, I went from a family of five to a single dad with two sons. I transitioned from a strong husband and dad to an emotional wreck of a widower, failing, and depressed father. It is unfathomable what all took place in my mind in those nine minutes.
The year and a half preceding the tornado were the hardest years of my life. It began with a major transition with my business. We came to a fork in the road and had to choose a path. The path we chose may have been the right choice, we will never know now, but it sure led us through some very tumultuous terrain. At the exact same moment, my church was going through quite possibly the greatest challenge it had ever faced. Just weeks before that all went down, I was handed the reins as chairman of the board of elders. I spent the next 18 months trying to be in two places at once, leading alongside my dad and brother at the business and also trying to hold a church together. There were several weeks where on top of spending 60-70 hours at work, I was spending an additional 30-40 hours in meetings at church. I know what you are thinking right now, those numbers do not add up. Regardless, they are real numbers. I know this because my wife was secretly keeping a log of my hours during this time. She later used this data as evidence to reinforce how completely nonexistent I was at home. Those hours do not leave any time for being a husband, a father, or a good steward of your own mind and body. For a long season (close to two years), the boys were asleep when I left in the morning and asleep when I got home at night. On one occasion as I got home late, I got out of my truck and collapsed by my front tire. I did not have an ounce of physical, mental, or emotional energy to even walk in my house. I also did not feel I deserved to be in my home. I remember hoping that my truck would just roll over me. Leslie eventually came outside and tried to drag me by my feet across the concrete. This was a very dark season and every night when I went to bed, I honestly thought, Leslie is going to find me dead the next morning. What is worse, she went to bed every night wondering if she would wake up a widow.
About fifteen months later, things at church calmed down and we were finally on the rise. We had a new pastor and good leader who brought a sense of much needed peace and unity. Yes! Keep church together; Check! Now I could shift that focus back to my company which had only gotten progressively worse over those same months. We were now in the worst season we had ever been in and there seemed to be no light at the end of the tunnel. It was May 2016. I had only taken a half a breath at this point, and that was just to quickly enjoy a sigh of relief that the church was now doing well. I was now going to shift my full focus onto the company and get it back where it needed to be.
Enter May 24, 2016 and the nine minute wake up call.
Although those nine minutes will forever serve as one of my greatest lessons, it would take years before I could completely get things under control and be what I needed to be for my family. I and everything around me was so far in a deep and dark hole that I could not climb out instantly. During this whole season, and while helping lead my church through its difficult situation, no one there knew what I was dealing with except one fellow board member. He was a retired football coach and principal and was someone I could confide in. After the tornado, he told me that he felt like my life was like the story of Job in the Bible. Yikes! Although, there were some similarities, I am grateful that God protected the lives of my family. Job lost his.
Those nine minutes of believing my entire world was over will always serve as a reminder to me of what is most important. Regardless of what is going on in the world around me, my focus will be primarily on my family and their well-being. Nine minutes is all it took. I had a vision for Man Among Boys years before the tornado, but the months following is when I really buckled down on making it a reality. Focusing on how I would reach men and fathers is what got me through the further dark season of getting back on my feet after the tornado. Despite what was going on around me, I knew things would eventually get better. The vision was so strong that I knew I would eventually be back on my feet to see it to fruition. That vision is what kept me from falling into depression. Although Man Among Boys is here to serve you in bettering yourselves as men and fathers, it first served me. It still serves me as writing strengthens me in ways I cannot express. I am not an expert. I do not have a doctorate in raising boys. I am just like you. We are figuring this out together.
Those nine minutes taught me several things that I want to share with you. One day I will put all of this in a book and go deeper into the detail surrounding these events, but for now I am going to share just a glimpse in a series here on my site. This series will provide some of the lessons that I learned in the days, months, and years following the tornado.
