Yesterday morning, I woke up to rain falling on my roof. I stretched and rolled over… snuggling down into my pillows for a few more hours of sleep. What a difference from a year ago.

A year ago, my beloved Nashville flooded. Rain fell and seemed it would never stop. Tornado warnings added to the stress of the days of rain.

From my blog post about the flood: We had pillows and blankets in our guest bathroom tub, ready to take cover any second. To say I was beside myself scared would be an understatement. As we watched on TV, the interstate that we take into town every day turned into a lake. A portable classroom literally floated down the interstate, and LaVergne was declared a disaster area. We couldn’t have gotten out if we had to… all exits out of town were flooded. …

Sunday became almost a vigil, watching the waters rise.  Belle Meade has neighborhoods where the houses are up to their roofs with water. People taking boats and jet skis to help others. 185 cars got stranded on I-40 over night last night when the road flooded both directions. Opry Mills Mall was flooded. The Grand Ole Opry house got flooded — water up over the stage. …  Opryland Hotel has over 10 ft of water inside, and the 1500 guests there had to evacuate to a high school. Downtown flooded up to 2nd avenue. … Our Symphony Center lost a $2.5 M Organ and two Steinway pianos in flooding. And right now downtown is dark, as a transformer has blown…

It is almost eery that our neighbors to the South are dealing with the aftermath of last weeks devastating tornadoes, almost a year to the day of our catastrophe. But just like us, they will come together and rebuild.

There are still plenty of signs the flood occurred. A big one being Opry Mills Mall has yet to reopen. Some people just chose not to rebuild, and there are homes that sit abandoned. But on a whole? We’ve come back… in most cases, better than before. (The backstage of the Opryhouse is AMAZING!)

We still cringe at a lot of rain. But we’ve been there together before… and we pulled through. We’re all stronger for it.

When I look back to the years before the flood, it’s sad to realize that when I would see news reports about flooding in other areas of the country, my thought process would be, “Oh no!” and then move on with my day. I never saw the bigger picture until I lived it myself. (Well, mostly. My husband and I were thankfully spared loss of property, etc. But we were here first hand to witness the devastation.) I guess on some level, I never realized how destructive a flood can be to a person, to a community.

Today, when something happens, I am far more compassionate… much quicker to want to know how I can help, if at all. I see the faces behind the news coverage. I see the businesses lost. I want to hear the personal stories. I want to reach out. I find myself wondering about the rebuilding afterwards.

The flood was definitely a rough time for Nashville. But I think it left us all wiser, stronger and more compassionate. I hope that as we mark this one year point, we will continue on this positive path with one another. I hope none of us ever forget this bond, because it is truly something special.