Laurie Arshonsky looks at her new life this way: The whirlwind of energy that destroyed her home and injured her and her family has given her the energy to heal others.

        It's been two years since the killer storm struck the Blue Ash and Montgomery areas on April 9, 1999. Four people were killed, dozens were injured and hundreds of homes were destroyed or severely damaged.

        A few months after the tornado, Mrs. Arshonsky, 48, began going to Healing Touch and massage therapy sessions offered at her church, Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Montgomery, hoping the sessions would help her heal physically and emotionally.

        The sessions worked: Now Mrs. Arshonsky, a registered nurse, volunteers at Hospice of Cincinnati to offer Healing Touch, a combination of energy healing and light touch therapy, to its patients.

Laurie Arshonsky practices healing touch therapy on James Wesley, 66, at Hospice of Cincinnati, where she is a volunteer. (Michael Snyder photos) | ZOOM |

        “It is so fulfilling and such an honor to work with people who are facing such a transition and to be able to give them that kind of peace and unconditional love,” Mrs. Arshonsky says.
       

The storm strikes
       

        Mrs. Arshonsky and her husband, Steven, were blown out of their bed when the storm hit their home on Valleystream Drive in Montgomery.

        “I just remember feeling like it was the end, and I was going to die. I always thought I was going to be afraid to die, but when it came down to it, I wasn't,” she says. “It was a peaceful feeling, and then I landed on the front lawn, and I thought, I'm going to need some help.” She started praying.

        Mr. Arshonsky's daughter, Susie, then 15, was still in the house, pinned under debris upstairs. The neighbors were coming out of their houses, and Mrs. Arshonsky could hear her husband calling for her, and heard her own voice calling for help.

        Mr. Arshonsky's son, Robert, then 12, found her and flagged down an ambulance when he realized how badly hurt she was. She had broken ribs, a punctured lung and a compression fracture in her back. When Robert found her, she could barely breathe and her pulse was fading.

        The four were all battered by the storm. Susie needed 13 staples for her injuries, but didn't need to be hospitalized; Robert had glass in his feet and other cuts and bruises; Mr. and Mrs. Arshonsky were hospitalized for their injuries, and Mr. Arshonsky spent a week in Drake Rehabilitation Center for his hip injury.
       

Friends reunite
       

        Mrs. Arshonksy was still in pain from her injuries when she began going to the Healing Touch sessions at Good Shepherd. The parish organized them to help tornado victims deal with the aftermath of the storm, says director of health ministries Jeanie Wolf.

Mrs. Arshonsky touches the neck of Hospice patient Barry Miller,73 | ZOOM |

        “This thing happened, and everyone knew here that we needed to respond somehow,” Ms. Wolf says. No one was quite sure how to do that. Basically, for me it was putting together what resources we had with the needs that made themselves known.”

        Organizers called the sessions “gatherings,” realizing that the storm's destruction had uprooted and separated longtime neighbors. “What parishioners said to me was, "How will I see my friends?” Some were still in their homes, and others were displaced. Even the ones who were in their homes weren't going to get to see their friends anymore,” Ms. Wolf says.

        The sessions served two purposes, she says: Tornado survivors could get their massage or Healing Touch therapy, and they could talk out their experiences in the storm. For the first few sessions, Ms. Wolf says, many of the participants were still too stunned to speak up. That didn't last long.

        “It was only a few times into the gatherings and they began to support one another and really didn't have much need for someone like myself to come around to invite the storytelling. It was incredible,” she says.
       

She found her calling

       

        After only a few gatherings, Mrs. Arshonsky, who trained as a nurse, but has never worked as one, knew she had found her calling. She signed up to begin training as a Healing Touch therapist in November 1999.

        The concept behind Healing Touch is basically this: The body is surrounded and powered by an energy field that can be disrupted, weakened or blocked by physical or emotional illness or trauma. Therapists work to correct those disruptions or blockages by using what Ms. Wolf calls “God's energy.” Once the energy field is put back into balance, the body can heal itself, according to practitioners.

        When Mrs. Arshonsky started Healing Touch therapy, one of the therapists mentioned “a leakage of energy where I'd landed on my knee,” she says.

        During the sessions, she says, “I was totally calm. When you have such profound relaxation, you can begin healing. It just felt wonderful. Exhilarating. It reduced my anxiety dramatically.”

        Giving the therapy feels much the same, she says. “In order to do the work, I have to be centered myself,” she says. “Getting to that state relaxes me.”

        As a therapist, her perceptions vary from patient to patient. “You can feel energy pulsations, heat and cold in the palms of the hands,” she says. “When you start out doing it, you're not really sensitive, but you learn. I'm feeling a lot more now than I did at the beginning.”

        The day before the tornado hit, Mrs. Arshonsky had resolved to live life to the fullest. She's living up to that resolution with her work at the hospice and a weekly painting group she attends. The Brushettes, she says, “are kind of another way to heal. They're my angels. They took me in under their wings. It's helped me to heal and to express myself.”

        For months after the storm hit, she says, she wouldn't admit to how shaken she was by the storm. One day she was driving and had what she calls a “kinetic flashback” as she relived the sensation of being flung from the house. She could feel the wind and the flying debris. The experience left her in tears.

        On another day, she and the other Brushettes were painting and they could hear a train passing by in the distance. Mrs. Arshonsky didn't know why she was so tense as a second and then a third and then a fourth train passed and she was in tears, almost hysterical. The roar of the train, she realized, reminded her of the roar of the storm.

        The Arshonskys' new home in Symmes Township has a comfortable storm shelter, just in case. The storm that uprooted the family also overturned some old ideas.

        “My view of death changed after the tornado,” she says. “It was something I feared before and I was afraid, but I've faced it and looked it right in the eye. I see it now as a transition. It's a natural course of things.

        “I feel that when you die, it's not the end. It's just a different thing. When I work with people at the hospice, I feel like I'm helping them deal with transition so that they won't be afraid and they'll have a peaceful death and be able to face whatever's after.”

Healing touch holds a power
Bunnies herald start of spring
Concert review
Fitness trainers get personal
Low-intensity workouts shown to help with weight loss
TV ad contraptions perform robbery, not miracles
Get to it