“Senior year, don’t care.” 

That was pretty much the motto for my entire graduating class. While my friends, and I maintained above average GPA’s, participated in extra-curricular activities, and took advanced placement and dual credit classes, there was this overwhelming sense of estrangement. 

We wanted out. Badly. None of us could wait to leave Joplin, this tiny little do-nothing town with no night life. 

While I was eager to leave home, I hadn’t made much effort to plan for the future, and by the time graduation came around it was time to decide between three colleges I had been looking at. 

My participation in the Constitution team had (among other things) affirmed my aspirations to practice constitutional law, and the universities all had commendable law programs and international studies programs, which is what I wanted to study before law school. 

Finally, the big day had arrived. I awoke to my mother’s fresh cinnamon rolls and another graduation gift: a set of antique pearls that had been passed down for generations. 

That afternoon, with my completely bedazzled graduation cap and glitter high heels, I made my way to the campus to accompany roughly 500 other students who were also awaiting their 30 seconds onstage. 

The ceremony was long and there were many faces in the room I had never seen. “These people went to my school?” I remember asking myself  as I walked toward the chair where I would stay for the next two hours. 

Leaving the ceremony was a rush. We filed out of the gym to receive our actual diplomas, and ran to our cars in the rain. With each step toward our car the weather deteriorated until we could barely see to drive home. 

Instead of heading directly to Crabby’s as was the plan, we decided to stop at home for a few minutes to wait out the rain at our house down the street from Missouri Southern. We walked inside in time to hear about the tornado warning for Jasper and Newton counties on the television before the power went out. 

Out of precaution, I piled in the innermost room in our house with my mother, my brother, and my friend Eli who had accompanied us to the graduation ceremony. We sat there eating the quiche my mother had made earlier but were soon startled by the sound of debris hitting our house. 

It sounded like a train was passing right outside our door and everything in our kitchen was flying out of the cabinets. 

After a few minutes of complete silence, we emerged from the house and looked down our street. There were uprooted trees strewn all down the road, roofs ripped from houses, and cars missing windshields. 

While this all sounds quite traumatic, we really had no idea how bad it was just down the road.  While we marveled at the demolition near our house, my neighbors had run down the street and pulled bodies out of cars before finding out that Wal-Mart had been completely destroyed.

This news was especially disturbing to me because my dad lived directly behind Wal-Mart. He had left my graduation early because he was called in to the E.R. and had to work.

However, my stepmother was supposed to be home during the storm. Immediately, I ran toward their home. 

Out of breath and in a panic, I franticly searched for their car and found it completely flattened. 

They weren’t in their ravaged apartment, and their phones were dead.

Blood drained from my face and I felt dizzy. 

We searched all night for them before we found out that my dad was at work when the storm struck and that my step-mom had been home but escaped and walked with their dog to the hospital to meet my dad. 

A month after the tornado, I attended the funeral of one of my good friends who was also a member of the Constitution team. 

We had flown to Washington, D.C. together earlier in the year for our national competition and had become close. 

The idea that this could happen to someone who cared so much about life made me reevaluate some of the decisions I was making. 

I still wanted to work for the government in India fighting religious persecution as a constitutional lawyer, but suddenly leaving home wasn’t the first thing on my mind. 

Helping family and friends move their lives from one place to another was hard, but it instilled a sense of community in all of us. 

Traveling around this summer, we heard a lot of, “Oh my! You’re from Joplin? The tornado town, right? How bad is it?” 

I even came across an animal shelter with a big sign that read “Help us help Joplin.” They were taking food donations for the Humane Society in Joplin. 

Everywhere you go in town, you see shirts saying “Rebuilding Joplin” or “Helping Joplin.”

Isn’t it ironic that our city was put on the map for being swept off it?