Heartland.

I've been glued to the news since 3 p.m. yesterday afternoon when a coworker hesitantly asked, "Um...do you know anyone in Moore, Oklahoma?"

And since then, everyone keeps asking...why would you live in a place that's been struck by tornadoes multiple times? Why would you put yourself in harm's way and submit yourself to the potential heartache of losing everything? And why, oh why, when it's all said and done...do you come back?

I might be a born Texan, and I might have only lived in Oklahoma for five years...but I learned something about that state when I was there.

Oklahomans don't give up. 

Ever.

If you think about Oklahoma City, the news probably makes you believe a lot of bad things happen there. Building are blown up for no good reason. Tornadoes with the highest winds ever recorded on the Earth's surface occur there, destroying lives and killing those in its path. Then they come back and tear everything to shreds again. Hell, the state literally blew away in the 1930s.

And every time it gets hit Oklahoma might sit for a moment, stunned by what's just transpired...but then it picks itself back up, dusts itself off and gets right to work fixing everything so life can go back to normal.

Why do they do it? How can they do it?

Because Oklahoma - and Oklahoma City in particular - is the very heart of this country.

Look at it on a map. No other city is so dead center in the United States with highways flowing through it in every direction like arteries connecting it to its body. OKC has to be strong because it's our heart - and if our heart fails...

I have two friends in particular in Oklahoma - one who just barely escaped having her whole life decimated yesterday - that I think about when wondering about the tenacity and strength of that state. These two girls taught me more about being resilient (and just when I needed it most) than they'll ever know simply by being them, the product of their home. 

Oklahomans, whether born or bred, are built a little bit different from the rest of us. Their skin is a little bit thicker, their hearts a little bigger and their ability to stare down disaster and dare it to strike them twice unparalleled. They don't scare or back down that easy. They don't give up without a fight.

You wouldn't want your heart to give up that easy, would you?