For the fourth straight day in a row, the valley has been waltzed by thunderstorms. Not the kind that simply rumble and threaten rain... but the ones that boom so loud the windows rattle, and the cloudbursts pour furiously with each flash of lightning.

Yesterday's storm was no exception.

I crawled up onto the bed with my dog for a nap, and woke to the sound of rumbling. I stared out the windows for countless minutes, watching the lightning dazzle on wet leaves outside my bedroom. The thunder would come, and I would feel my dog's body jolt in his sleep. I loved every lazy, stormy moment.

Another whip-crack of thunder snapped overhead, and the rain came down in a torrent. I jumped off the bed, dog instantly shadowing me, and we ran down to the back porch facing East. One of the benefits of living on a hill is that you can see the entire valley in one glance. I watched lightning touching down on the hills all around, and breathed the scent of rain and ozone.

I also noticed the flashing lights of an ambulance coming up the main road near my house.

My mother came through the living room and walked out onto the porch with me, having arrived back after running some errands. She saw the lights as well, and stopped to see where they were going.

Once the thunder had rolled into silence for a moment, we heard the sirens of the aid car. We watched as it made it's way straight up the main road, getting louder and louder until it turned just below my street and cut across the fairgrounds road.

Right in the direction of my grandmother's house.

Trees obscurred the last few yards of the ambulance's trek, but it seemed like it slowed down right near grandma's driveway. My dad's mom. The last grandparent I have living.

I stood up on the wide railing of the porch, trying to get a better view. I could barely see lights flashing through trees, and then they disappeared. If they went down grandma's driveway, that would make sense. It was a steep dirt road that lead to her house.

"I think we better go see where they went," mom said. I agreed. Seconds later we were running through the rain to my Jeep.

I fumbled with the keys, but finally got them in the ignition. It only took a minute to drive down and cut across the fairgrounds road, just as the ambulance had. I'm not sure about mom, but I held my breath as we pulled up far enough to see her driveway.

The ambulance was parked outside her door.

I gasped. Mom muttered quietly. We turned down the dirt road and parked in the grass, so as not to block the driveway.

The thunder clapped overhead. Lightning lit the sky. We were soaking wet when we went through the creaking screen door to find the living room door wide open, and paramedics kneeling in front of grandma.

I glanced up at the walls. There was the faded portrait of my aunt as homecoming queen, circa 1955.

I blinked, and a paramedic came into my vision. He asked me who I was and I told him. He said it appeared that she had suffered a stroke. He asked me how old she was. I said I thought she was 84. He nodded and turned to his partner, who made notes on a clipboard.

Fred, the elderly neighbor from down the street who has taken a shining to my grandmother ever since the passing of her husband many years ago, was the one who found her. He said she was supposed to call him by noon, and hadn't. It was about 2:30 in the afternoon. He walked in and found her on the floor.

She looked at me from where she sat, and smiled. I smiled back. But the paramedics kept asking her questions, and she blinked at them like a wounded dove.

They wheeled her out of her old house, to load her on the stretcher outside. I watched as they hoisted her up and covered her with white blankets. She looked up into the sky, through the rain. Thunder clapped. Lightning lit her eyes.

I could see her wondering if she would ever come home again.