I had a breaking news shift the following morning so it was with slight hesitation that I haphazardly threw things in a duffel bag and drove to Joplin. I was relieved the next morning when John got in touch with me and I wasn't in big fat trouble. He asked about my family and then pointed out that incidentally, I was in the middle of a national news story.
I knew that. I was as shell-shocked and heartsick as the next person, but the journalist side of me recognized that this was huge, and I was the first one from the Missourian on the ground (to my knowledge). I wanted to get the word out... but I didn't know how I could possibly be a journalist in a time like that. I've only had one journalism professor tell me I could be human -- the rest seem like they want you to turn off all your compassion and feelings and be a robot. But John told me that I couldn't -- and shouldn't -- remove myself from the situation. It was okay to be human. So I wrote my first dispatch.
That one came easy, because I hadn't seen anything yet. When I saw my friend Andrea's, it got harder.
When I delved deeper into the disaster zone with Kristen and Molly, the other two Missourian reporters, it was almost too much.
I hit the wall that night. That became a common expression for everyone in Joplin; all you had to say was "I hit the wall yesterday" and we all knew what it meant. Everyone hit at different points and for different reasons, but we all hit it nonetheless.
The good thing about hitting the wall is that things look a little brighter on the other side, which was my inspiration for my next two dispatches.
I was grateful for a two-day break to just be. And then for a little closure when President Obama visited.
It's difficult to describe that experience and the emotions that came with it. I'm so grateful that my editors gave me the chance to do these dispatches, even if only a handful of people in Columbia read them. I was so grateful to have Molly and Kristen there so I didn't have to go through it alone, especially the night the tornado sirens started going off and we all hid in the bathroom together. I cried when they gave me a slip of paper out of a fortune cookie that said, "Time heals all wounds. Keep your chin up."
By the end of the week, I learned that I didn't have to turn off my "human side" and turn on my "reporter side"... I could be both at once. I learned that even though I wasn't writing the hard news, I needed to be in the middle of it all and see everything if I was going to express all the emotions that people in Joplin were going through.
I was relieved and heartbroken to leave, all at once. And as life changing as it was, I sincerely hope I never have to relive it.
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