The delivery room nurse put Fox into my arms, and I knew real fear.

I looked into his eyes and complacency left forever.

Forever.

It's called 'parenthood' and it is the deepest and truest of all fears-the sum of them, I am sure of this.

Over the next years, as he grew into a very angry young man, I was silently promising him that when the time came I would 'let go' gracefully-no clingly mom here, uh uh, no sir, not FoxsMom.

I cannot tell you how much I miss my son, how much I miss my grandson.

So this weekend when NOAA and The Weather Channel advised a storm was brewing in the Gulf of Mexico, I kept myself from flipping out, to my son, and about my grandson.

But oh MAN, was I praying!

And kicking myself for leaving-were I there I could just hogtie Fox, snatch Baby's Baby (ya know, we call our grandkids the oddest little names, don't we?), and get EVERYONE the bloody hell out of Dodge!

I just stayed REALLY-REALLY close to the Internet. I mean really close.

I have an old fashioned work ethic that tells me 'net surfing during company hours is highly unethical, and normally I heed that voice in my heart.

I suspect everyone on the management team knew I was watching the storm, albeit checking only at lunch and break. OK, and um, maybe once or twice extra, when I knew NOAA had posted a scheduled update.

I suspect that because they know how I am now.

After Ivan. After spending 18 horrific hours huddled in the bathtub with an aging Boxer dog as tornado after tornado swirled around my miserable little shelter down there in Dothan.

We had a tornado warning during working hours here in Metro Atlanta a bit over a week ago, and although I handled my utter terror so well that I have been asked to help form a corrected disaster plan, my co-workers had no trouble at all seeing how traumatized I still am-TWO bloody years later! I've come to realize that I need help-as in professional-dealing with it.

So I wasn't written up, no-one commented, and the one time I gasped when I saw that the "Cone of Uncertainty" had grown to include Dothan all I heard was "Hang in there, it hasn't made landfall..."

Everyone was careful around all of us who've relocated up here from Down There. Everyone was calm. Everyone was behaving as though they'd been briefed on how to help those of us who'd been through Ivan, Dennis, Katrina, in case we needed help.

It was rather nice, the sense of "We're here for you if you need us" that everyone exuded without being overt about it all.

And meanwhile I stayed REALLY-REALLY close to the Internet.

It's 'Cane Season.

Again.