In my last post, I shared the story behind my photo “Sunrise Ascent,” which won third place in its category of sunrises/sunsets and then third place for “Community Favorites” at the Greenbelt Labor Day Photo Show. Following is the story behind “Sunrise Tornado Watch” which won first place in its category of sunrises/sunsets and first place for “Community Favorites.”

This story is about the rewards of risk . . . and grief.

On November 20, 2024, I discovered my beloved cat, Jem, dead at the top of my stairs. Two hours earlier, he had been sleeping and purring in my lap during my routine morning quiet time in my small poetry room. Discovering his body was traumatic. Cocooned in my flannel sock monkey pajamas and slippers, I retreated from life and watched episode after episode after episode of “Will and Grace.”

Four days later, around 6:30 on Sunday morning, November 24, my iPhone buzzed loudly with a weather alert. The right weather conditions existed for tornadoes to form with the added warning to be on the lookout for “severe thunderstorms, hail, high winds and lightening.” I stepped outside onto my back deck and saw dark and ominous colors in the sky that I had never seen before. What do I have to lose, I thought, and grabbed my winter coat and — still wearing my pajamas and slippers — drove as quickly as I could to my favorite spot in farmland, When I arrived, I noted how much the angry and dark sky reflected my mood.

I decided to move back from where I was for a wider perspective.

The next photo I took was the award-winner — the first photo in this post. Just thirty seconds after taking the photo I now call, “Sunrise Tornado Watch,” I took my last photo of the morning. The winds had picked up considerably and it was starting to rain.

When I got home and uploaded the five (just five!) photos onto my Desktop, I saw a sunrise I had never seen before; one that I suspected I would never see again. I also noticed that less than four minutes had elapsed from the first photo to the fifth photo.

One can glean several lessons from this story. An obvious one is: “The higher the risk, the higher the reward,” though I honestly wasn’t thinking about a possible tornado as I took these photos. Another is from Rumi: “Don’t grieve. Everything you lose comes around in another form.” Was Jem in that sky?

And then this, more-Sharon-like lesson that I jotted down from somewhere: “The storm within is often calmed by the storm outside.” I can’t say that I felt less sad about losing Jem after taking these photos, but the next morning, I did take off my sock monkey pajamas, put on exercise clothes and go to the Fitness Center. I remember that it was overcast. I remember looking at the sky and thinking there will always be another storm — a rainstorm or windstorm or snowstorm. Some will be fierce and some will be small. But somehow I knew that even at the storm’s center, I would survive. I would see a new day; a day I had never seen before.