A lot of people have been sharing their stories and experiences of the devastating Hurricane Sandy which struck the east coast last week. Today, I will share mine.

Last Monday afternoon, we were all sitting around in the Meatball Home, waiting for Hurricane Sandy to strike. Our eight year old already had school called off, so it was my wife and our two boys in the house, listening to the weather reports and waiting. And waiting…We carved out pumpkins, watched a few movies and looked out the window at the branches swaying from the wind.

Then, it got windier. And windier. We made it through the day and then during “Monday Night Raw” the power went out. It was about 8:30p.m., and we would be without power until Friday morning at around 3:45am. Almost 80 hours of no lights, heat or TV. Thank God for our cellphones we were able to charge in the car and utilize to access information over the internet. We made it through just like everyone else…with candles, flashlights and most importantly, each other.

I was so proud of my boys for how they handled things—playing with their figures by candlelight. We watched a few more DVDs on the laptop which I was able to charge at my parents’ house who were lucky to never lose power at all. We had a few meals at my parents as well since I had to toss everything in the fridge and could only eat what we could prepare on the gas stovetop since the electric oven was unusable.

This storm did not produce much rain where we live, and since we also do not live near any bodies of water, we did not experience any floods in our home or on our block. Aside from a cable wire that got knocked down in front of our house, we had no damage or losses except for the power. Our car did not get crushed by any limbs or debris. There was really no debris around my property. Compared to some of the devastation and destruction that a lot of our friends in neighboring towns and our neighbors in New York and down the shore experienced, we were truly, very lucky.

By Thursday night, I will admit the whole situation was starting to wear on us, and I asked God to restore our power by the morning and I would make it a point to bring the family to Church on Sunday to thank Him and pray for all those who were still suffering. And then, Friday morning, the lights went on.

On Friday afternoon, I spent 4 hours in the car getting gas, traveling up and down Route 17 and going to three stations. My poor kids were in back seat the whole time famished, but every drive-thru was closed due to no electric. I had to give them crackers and cookies I found at an open mini mart to hold them over until dinner and they never complained once. It’s funny, I was telling my wife that since we got our internet, cable TV and other conveniences back, the boys have been more bored and edgy than when we had nothing and they had to keep themselves occupied with their toys. While progress and technology is great for some things (our aforementioned cellphones), there is certainly an “entertainment overload” these days that I didn’t have when I was growing up which definitely brings overstimulation and restlessness in our ADD/ADHT society. But that’s for a whole other blog.

My heart goes out to all of the victims that experienced death, injuries and destruction throughout this storm. I think even though we were more prepared for it after Hurricane Irene last year, we were still hit very hard and thousands of people are still without power as I write this. Or their homes. That is a horrible thing, and as I will repeat, although my family was part of this and are considered victims as well, we were so lucky to make it through relatively unscathed.

I kept my word to God and went to Church on Sunday and it felt good to see a full house. It was nice to be among a lot of other grateful individuals within our community who shared our same sentiments. Those sentiments were gratitude for what we had and prayers of hope for those who lost more than us.