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Thursday, May 29, 1997

Man's search for mother ends bittersweet

By CHIP BROWN / Associated Press Writer

JARRELL, Texas (AP) - Patrick Tucker woke up Tuesday morning, still groggy from moving into his mother's three-bedroom, 3,000-square-foot brick house just outside of town.

Under sunny skies after breakfast, Tucker and his mother, Kay, talked briefly with neighbors in the subdivision known as Double Creek Estates, a cluster of about 50 houses on rolling Texas prairie filled with grazing cattle.

Tucker kissed his mother goodbye, climbed into his pickup and drove 40 miles south to Austin and his job as a massage therapist.

It was the beginning of a new life for Tucker, who decided in his mid-30s to move back in with his mother because he feared her being alone, nine months after his father passed away.

Seven hours later, Tucker feared that he would never see his mother again.

Reports of tornadoes touching down in Jarrell about 3:30 p.m. caused Tucker to drop his appointments and race back up Interstate 35 through hurricane-like winds and rain until he was face-to-face with a police blockade at the entrance to what used to be his mother's subdivision.

"I saw the twister on television and knew that mom was there, and I feared it was all over," Tucker said, his blue eyes intense against his red hair.

Tucker demanded access, but police refused. Hysterical, he retreated until out of their sight and then jumped a barbed wire fence. In loafers with no socks, khakis and a golf shirt, Tucker raced through wet fields of soft mud until he reached what was to be his new home.

"I found nothing," Tucker said. "I found a neighborhood that was as if it never existed. It was just razed. There wasn't even a slab to my mother's house. Everything was gone. Absolutely zero. And her home was the showplace of the neighborhood.

"I just thought my mother was gone."

Tucker searched the grounds, looking for anything he recognized. He found nothing familiar, not any of the possessions he had just unpacked.

The neighbors' house was gone. The neighborhood was gone.

With mud splattered from his head to his loafers and sprinkled in his red beard, Tucker trudged back into town. He found a rare coin wrapped in a protective plastic seal. He picked it up, convinced that it would be his only reminder and only possession after the devastation.

He walked slowly toward the town's high school gymnasium, where people were beginning to gather.

In the crowd of sobbing people, Tucker spotted red hair like his - only curlier - on the head of his mother.

Tears of elation poured from his eyes upon learning that she had gone to a dentist appointment and then decided not to drive home after hearing of a tornado warning.

"She was outside of Jarrell after going to the dentist and heard about the twister and decided to stay away," Tucker said, with his arm around his mother, who was too emotional to speak. "We're OK."

But his enthusiasm dampened as he thought about the families of at least 30 who weren't OK, specifically a family of five that lived next door to his mother. The family, feared dead, included twin daughters, a son and another daughter. Nobody had heard from them.

"They were the perfect family," Tucker said, starting to get choked up. "The kids were full of life and wonderful to be around. They brought life to the neighborhood. I can't think about it after seeing where their house used to be. Their house is gone. It's just not fair." Send a Letter to the Editor about This Story | Start or Join A Discussion about This Story
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