The man before the storm

Which Comes First: The System or the Person?

A storm is coming
The man springs into action.

Loose things are gathered.
Doors are secured.
Windows are boarded.
What can be tied down is tied.
What can be moved is moved.

There's no time for feelings
The storm is coming.

His wife calls him inside.
“Come in. Now!
Its too dangerous.
Can't you see what this is doing to me?
Don't ignore my feelings.
Don't trample on my heart.
Why are you always like this?
More machine than man.”

He does not answer.
Not yet.
There is still one thing to finish.
One last fastening.
One last shutter.
One last barrier to build
between his family
and the wind.

Then he comes inside.
Job done,
Time to face the music.

She is still angry and ignores him.
And he wonders:
Which came first?
Was it the system or the man?

The system is complete:
observation,
assessment,
preparation,
security,
done.

Did the system make the man
or the man the system?

Later, when the storm is raging,
he remembers his father.
He remembers another storm.
Another house.

Another man moving quietly
from window to window,
putting things in order,
checking the doors,
making ready.

His father had not explained much.
He had simply done
what needed to be done.
And the boy had watched.
The lesson of discipline
was something older than his own decision.

Perhaps he was not following a system at all.
Perhaps he was following a man.
His father or his father's father.

The storm arrives.
It strikes the house
with all its fury.

The wind screams.
The rain beats against the glass.
The daughter trembles.
The wife falls silent.

And the man sits beside them.
He does not say,
“I told you so.”
He does not say,
“You should have trusted me.”

He simply stays.
Outside, the storm takes what it can.
Fences fall.
Trees break.
Roofs disappear into the darkness.

Morning comes.
The family walks outside.
The neighbors' houses
are damaged and scattered.

But theirs is standing.
The windows are intact.
The doors are secure.
The roof has held.

The wife looks at him.
The daughter looks at him.
And something in them breaks;
not from the storm,
but from understanding.

They had mistaken his silence
for indifference.
His discipline
for coldness.
His preparation
for obsession.

They had seen the system
but not the man.

They had seen the action
but not the love behind it.
And now they understand:
He had not been protecting
a system.
He had been protecting them.

They had allowed the storm to rule their hearts
before it ever reached the house.
Beneath the anger and the doubt
was the terror of the storm,
and the falling apart beneath it.

The man thought he had followed
a method.
But beneath the method
was the memory of the man he modeled himself on.
That love does what must be done
when those it loves are in danger.

He stands not as a machine.
Not as system or set of methods.
As a man with the courage to do the right thing.

Standing between
the storm
and those he loved.