Now that was an electrical storm.

I woke up startled in the wee hours of Sunday morning by the most earth-shattering, teeth-rattling, ear-piercing flashes of lightning and claps of thunder I have ever seen or heard in my life (including Hurricane Ike). I think what woke me up first was the sound of our back-up battery beeping as it does whenever the power goes out, and shortly after...

CRACK! 

I swear it hit our building. It even woke up the ever-slumbering Michael enough for him to whistle "whooo-ooo" before he dropped off to sleep again.

Adrenaline racing, I listened carefully for sounds that the children were disturbed by the storm, all the while thinking about the mothers I saw living under a bridge on Victoria Island the day before. I saw them with their children toddling around them, as they prepared food in their makeshift kitchens drawing water from God-knows-where, with scruffy, scawny dogs prancing around the edges of their camp. I wondered how they comforted their little babies as the rain blew in their faces with no walls and roof to muffle the sound of the storm.

Fearful as I was then for my children's well-being, as they lay in their air-conditioned rooms under clean blankets and on soft beds, I tried to imagine the other mothers' terror with so little protection from the elements, from crime, violence, hunger and disease. And I prayed for us all.