Posted by
Billy email MADBillyD@aol.com on Friday, January 02, 2009 10:12:46 PM
Back to the "same old, same old."
With those simple words, 15-year-old Thomas Auen summed up the beautiful normalcy that fills his home at Christmastime this year.
Small signs betray the ordeal Thomas and his family have endured over the past six months - a gift bag overflowing with cards from well-wishers, a handicap-accessible ramp at the front door, a slight limp when Thomas walks forward to greet a visitor.
But if a specter of the tornado that ravaged the Little Sioux Scout Ranch clouds Thomas' life, it isn't apparent in his wide smile or his sparkling blue eyes.
Six months ago, that storm changed some lives and ended others. Four boys died and 42 were injured when a tornado hit the Boy Scout camp in Monona County, Iowa.
Since then, Thomas has undergone 10 surgeries, months of physical therapy and months in a wheelchair, working toward a new version of normal.
For most kids, normal isn't being greeted by President Bush. It's not having a new trachea constructed out of cartilage from your rib. It's not having football players carry you up the stairs in your wheelchair on your first day of high school.