by Jayne Bonilla

Created on: May 27, 2008

"My brother's name is Andrew, he's a very friendly boy, unlike the recent hurricane who came here to destroy. It blew the roof right off my house, it knocked down all my trees, but my family's still all standing, I give thanks on both my knees..." Having lived through Hurricane Andrew in 1992, we became emotionally "swept up" in the experience of living through a hurricane and dealing in the aftermath of this ferocious natural disaster.

Our two little boys, 4 year old Richie and 2 year old Kevin, were snuggling together in our walk in closet with no windows. We pretended they were sleeping in a tent on a fictitious camp out and we wrapped them in safety in one sleeping bag. Fortunately they slept through the howling winds, power outages, torrential rain, lightening flashes and resounding thunder. The seemingly endless storm finally died down and as the sun rose in the morning, so did our thankfulness for remaining safe and for being spared from the eye of the storm.

Little did we know, that for so many lives, the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew would be even worse than the storm itself. The recovery process began immediately and neighbors helping neighbors was our call to duty. When groping for answers to share with my children in response to their inquisitive minds and heavy hearts, I believed a combination of words and actions were in demand.

The actions came from collecting and delivering water, baby supplies, clothing and food to our hard hit neighbors south of us. Richie and Kevin carried gallons of water and boxes of supplies and they instinctively knew they were helping rebuild the lives of people who were in need of support. Even at ages 4 and 2, they felt a sense of pride in making a positive difference in other's lives. But when I began searching for the words that would bring hope and joy to the many children who had to directly and indirectly cope in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew, I learned that there were limited resources. There were books written on hurricanes but I couldn't find one that was written to emotionally embrace children.

Having met a little girl named Millie who lived in Country Walk, a community devastated by the storm, I was "blown away" by her resiliency after learning that Millie and her family lost everything but the clothes on their backs. Instead of focusing on her losses, this 11 year old girl celebrated the survival of her family, their health and well being. After all, nothing else in life matters. Thus the children's book

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