THE NARRATIVE ARC
Don’t Panic — the Storms Have Passed Us, Baby Girl
‘I was watching them’
When I was eight years old, my momma was in a catastrophic car accident that changed the course of our family’s lives.
Nothing would ever be quite the same again.
We moved to Kentucky, from California, just before I turned eight. Within three months, my mother was lying in the hospital, fighting death daily.
My brother and I stayed with the family of one of his friends. My sister stayed with her friend and her mother. Dad spent most of his time at the hospital with Mom when he wasn’t at work.
And Mom fought for her life.
We got to see her (us kids, that is) once a week, if we were lucky. The hospital she was in was over two hours away because the local hospital couldn’t handle her injuries, so visiting wasn’t simple.
Eventually, Mom came home. She was still in traction and had major wounds from surgeries she’d undergone that needed constant monitoring and care, but she was home.
She would lie in a hospital bed in the living room, her leg in traction, till I was almost nine.
They told her she’d never walk again. They told her she’d lose her leg.
Neither of those things were true. They didn’t know my mother. Us kids needed her, and not getting back on her feet was not an option.
We lived in a mobile home in a state that boasted frequent tornados, something none of us had ever experienced before. We had a cellar, but Mom was in traction, so she was stuck.
Tornadoes might be headed our way, but all she could do was lie there and pray that they would go around us and urge us kids to hide in the cellar.
As you can imagine, Mom developed a deathly fear of storms, and so did I. As a child, not much scared me as much as a tornado being in the area. We had already almost lost Mom more times than I cared to think about, and every time there was a storm, I knew there was a real chance it would swoop her out of our mobile home and up into the air, never to be seen or heard from again.
Mobile homes are not a good place to be during a tornado. Everyone knows that, even little girls fresh from California.
Our cellar sat nestled inside a little hill, built into it for an added layer of protection. It was about thirty feet from our house, and we had to go outside to get to it, of course. This is no basement we’re talking about. There were stairs leading down to it, and they were rather steep.
Eventually, Mom was on her feet again, but she wasn’t steady just yet. Still, she was determined that the next time there was a tornado, she would be in the cellar with us kids, rather than back in the trailer with Daddy.
And so, when we were under a warning the next time, off we went, us kids scrambling in first, and Mom and Dad carefully easing down the stairs. I know Dad couldn’t have been any fonder of tornadoes than the rest of us, having been raised in California, but I can still hear his calm voice as he held onto Mom’s arm.
“Slow and steady. No need to be in a big hurry. We’re okay. I’ve got you. Just keep your eyes where you’re going. Don’t get distracted.”
A huge bolt of lightning streaked across the sky, and a crack that sounded like God himself was coming down for a visit echoed above us. Mom lost her focus, her eyes pulled to the terrifying storm raging above us, above her and Dad, still out in the open, trying to navigate those steep stairs.
She fell. Dad went with her.
I screamed, and my big sister told me to be quiet, her eyes as wide as saucers. I swallowed the panic from my throat into my belly and started to cry silently.
Dad regained his feet quickly, but Mom didn’t.
We could all tell she had rebroken her leg. The angle was so far from natural that it hurt my leg to see it.
Mom started to cry.
I started to sob when I saw that she was crying.
A funnel cloud spun above us, lightning and thunder raged, and Dad screamed for my big brother to get him the tarp from the corner of the cellar.
At first, he tried to get Mom onto the tarp, so he could pull her inside to safety, but every time he even nudged that leg, she screamed. Realizing he couldn’t move her, he did his best to hold that tarp over his and Mom’s heads, shielding her the best he could, using both his body and the corner of the tarp.
And until the storm was over, he laid outside with Mom, telling her that it was going to be okay, that they would fix her leg back up again and she would be walking again before she knew it.
Once the storm was over, an ambulance came and got Mom, and off she and Dad went, with us kids following with a friend a short time later.
We were in the hospital the rest of the night. Mom would not be leaving anytime soon.
It was devastating.
Mom did walk again, but it took a very long time, and we almost lost her again during the surgery needed to fix that nasty break she had suffered.
My mom remains terrified of storms to this day, thirty-one years later. She panics when there is even a chance of tornadoes. As I grew older, my fear faded to what I think is a healthy respect at this point.
I would never go out and dance in a tornado, but neither do I cry when storms are coming. I just take the precautions I can, and I watch the news to see if I need to take the kiddo (and now my parents since they have lived with me since 2020) into the safest part of the house.
I suck at deciphering the radar, though, so when the hubster is traveling for work, I get aggravated and do worry more. It scares me to think that I might not recognize the best time to get the kids up, since I let them sleep as long as possible, only taking them into the safer area if it’s unavoidable. They almost always have school the following day, and I know they need to sleep.
Last week, we were under a tornado warning in the middle of the night. Mom had told me goodnight (via text) hours earlier, so I knew my parents were sleeping. I had my eyes on the news. My daughters were sleeping too, which meant they were completely vulnerable. My husband was not home, so I knew it was up to me to make sure everyone stayed safe.
I felt a little bit alone, but I kept telling myself that I am a strong and capable woman, so there was no reason why it mattered that the fella wasn’t home.
And then my phone pinged.
It was an email from my dad. He doesn’t have a cellphone, so when he wants to talk to me from his and Mom’s little apartment inside my home, he emails.
The subject line was this: I have my eye on the storm, baby girl.
The body read: The radar shows it’s going to go around us, so don’t worry too much. Love, Dad.
Tears poured down my face as I was catapulted back to that terrifying night when I was just a little girl. I remembered his voice, trying so hard to be calm that night so many years ago, as he tried to reassure us all that we were going to be okay. I know how scared he must have been.
And that’s when I was hit full force in the face with it. A truth that has been becoming clearer and clearer the older I get.
No matter how many demons he fought when I was a kid. No matter how many things I wish had played out differently in our family. No matter how much some things I went through, many at his hand, still haunt me, my daddy has always done his best to have my back.
Don’t worry, baby girl. Daddy’s got his eye on the storms.
“I love you forever and ever. I’ve been watching over you, baby girl, and the storms have left us alone this day,” an email he sent about a half hour later said.
I don’t need to understand how to decipher the radar.
My daddy does. And he’s watching over me.
How much safer could me and my own babies be?
Peace and love, y’all. ❤