I lay awake in bed in the darkness of the night, listening to the sound of the thunderstorm that had just begun. I lay there listening and waiting . . . waiting for my dog, Kokomo, to begin barking in the demanding way that he always barked when there was a storm. He was our one-eyed, chocolate-colored miniature poodle that usually slept in his bed downstairs, but whenever there was a thunderstorm, he would always become frightened and insist on coming upstairs to crawl in bed with me until it was over. He would never come up by himself; he would stay at the foot of the stairs and bark fiercely until I went down to get him.
So, I waited, and soon, like clockwork, Kokomo began his “Come get me - I’m scared!” bark. I went down, picked him up at the foot of the stairs, brought him back up and put him in bed with me. Usually he would bury himself under the covers and stay there through the duration of the storm. When it was over, he would hop up and wait for me to put him down on the floor so he could return happily back downstairs to his own bed.
But, tonight was different. Kokomo never really settled down as usual; instead, he continued to move around anxiously all over the bed. After only a minute or two, he went to the edge of the bed and looked as if he wanted to get down again. Looking back at me, I could tell that he wanted me to put him back down on the floor.
“What’s the matter, Kokomo? Are you not feeling safe enough up here tonight?” I asked. I thought maybe he wanted to get under the bed where he might feel even more protected; after all, the storm was definitely becoming more intense with harder rain, strong wind, more frequent lightening and louder claps of thunder.
I put Kokomo down on the floor, but instead of going under the bed, he ran out of the bedroom to the top of the stairs. I could see him from where I was - still in my bed, but now at the foot of it to get a clear view of the hallway that led to the descending staircase. He didn’t take off down the stairs; instead, he stared at me and came back hurriedly to the side of my bed, looking up at me pleadingly as he wiggled anxiously and whined over and over. “Aww, come on, Kokomo. You aren’t going to make me get out of bed and carry you back down those stairs, are you? You can go down them by yourself. Go on . . . go, go,” I directed.
He ran over to the stairs, looked back at me again with that serious, nervous look, then rushed back to my bedside and did the same anxious wiggle and whine routine that he had previously done. He did this two more times, and finally I figured out that it wasn’t that Kokomo wanted me to carry him back down for HIS sake, he wanted me to come down with him and stay for my own safety. He was afraid for me to stay upstairs any longer in such a threatening storm.
Suddenly, I heard my mom’s voice inside my head. Every time there was the possibility of severe weather, my mom would always say, “If the weather gets bad, you come downstairs and stay until it is over. It is dangerous for you to be up on a high level during a bad storm.”
“OK, Mom and Kokomo,” I said with a sigh, “you both win.” After uttering those words, I crawled out of bed, picked up Kokomo and started down the hallway toward the staircase. Making our way down the stairs, we had almost reached the bottom when, suddenly, the brightest flash of lightening that I had ever seen in all of my life occurred. It lit up not just the inside of our house, but also the outside. It looked as if it were 3:00 in the afternoon instead of 3:00 in the morning! This bright light was immediately followed by the loudest blast of thunder that I had ever heard. To my ears, it was more like a bomb had gone off, and the explosion sounded as if it had happened right outside my bedroom upstairs! Intense fear shot all through my body and literally took my breath away.
Right about that time, my parents came hurrying out of their bedroom. Even though they were both hard of hearing, the explosive thunder had awakened them from a sound sleep. “Are you OK?” Dad asked me with concern. “Yes, Kokomo and I are both fine. I’ve never heard such a loud explosion in my whole life,” I said. “That lightening struck something very close to our house,” Dad announced. “We need to stay down here until it is over.”
I rattled on excitedly, “Kokomo would not rest until I came downstairs with him. He knew something was about to happen! It sounded like whatever the lightening struck was right outside my bedroom window. We barely made it down before it hit. I’m glad I paid attention to him!” “Kokomo’s always looking out for us,” Dad said, giving him a pat on the head.
We all stayed downstairs until the storm was over. After surveying the entire house, we didn’t find any type of damage – not then, anyway. But, the next morning, we discovered that all of our phones were dead, and the printer in the music room also would no longer work.
When Dad made his way outside to check on things, he eventually spotted the source of the loud, bomb-like explosion. Our 100-ft. tall pine tree had been hit by lightening. The tree was located about 20 yards from the back left corner of our house, not terribly far from my bedroom and our music room. A section of bark about 3 inches in width, starting at the base of the tree and running all the way to the very top, had been stripped away. The lightening also had dug a narrow, 12-ft. long and 8 inches deep ditch on the ground right beside the trunk of the tree, and several blocks of wood that had been lying under it had been blown up into small, splintered pieces! How Dad’s car, which was only 4 feet from the tree, escaped any damage, I will never know.
When staring at that great pine tree, I thought back to the dark wee hours of the morning when Kokomo’s relentless promptings for me to get downstairs had finally got my attention. Animals can sense things that we can’t. He knew danger was coming, and he had no intention of going back downstairs unless I went with him. I shudder to think what might have happened if we had stayed upstairs – being that the lightening strike was so close to my bedroom. I’m sure the loud, explosive sound would have terrified us! We also might have experienced some effects of the lightening itself.
Come what may, Kokomo was going to stick it out with me. If I had stayed upstairs in harm’s way, he would have been right there in harm’s way beside me. Such is the unconditional love and protection of our beloved pets. They are always there for us!
