As I sit here, watching the autumn leaves fall to the cold ground, I see the clouds hover over the once blue sky. A thunderstorm is rolling in. This replays the dreadful memories that stay with me. Years ago, I watched a thunderstorm run ramped in my own home, destroying everything in his path. My birth father was that thunderstorm. He was one that roared and rumbled loudly. Then when he was finished, he quiets, and then becomes silent, only to be heard again when the anger builds. All of a sudden he becomes more ferocious like a lion being teased by its tamer. But neither a lion nor a thunderstorm can be truly and fully tamed. But a thunderstorm cannot be controlled whatsoever. We can predict thunderstorms as we have observed its movements and how it will act. But when you are trapped in a thunderstorm, you are bound to be struck by its lightening, one whose strikes leave destruction; nothing is safe when it tears through. This kind of thunderstorm leaves people wounded, bruised, and sometimes bloody. The wounds may heal, but the emotional damage is much worse, it may get better over time, but this emotional damage remains. I run inside as my thoughts were interrupted by the thunder’s huge rumble. As I arrive inside the house, I decide to curl up on the couch which I begin to remember the actual events that have overwhelmed my life, it changed the life I once knew to the one I lead today.

I was just a scared child with such an empty soul. I never thought I would even have the courage and have such the warm soul I have today. Almost every night I would hear the loud voices behind the wall, the ones that woke me from a sound sleep and had me pulling the covers over my head, ones that would have me trembling and very frightened when I was awake. All I would hear is “You will never find anyone else! Nobody’s better than me! Why do you have to make me this angry?! You’ll be lucky if you make it to see the light of day ever again!” is all I hear from my birth father, the one who helped to create me, but also the one who puts his hands on the woman who gave birth to me and is my best friend. This is where I hear her screams that feel like someone piercing my skin by stabbing me right in the heart. And I remember the echoes of a broken child, me, screaming “Please, no more.” When the voices were silenced, I went to see what the thunderstorm that is my birth father had left behind. I look to see my mother’s face covered in bruises, along with tears that streamed down her face, one that I mirrored. I began to let the tears stream down my face as I hug her tightly. This is where I first learned that the bruises fade, but the pain will last forever.

I would hear the loud voices again and the same words repeated as the worry overcame me as I was still terrified. “You will never find anyone else! Nobody’s better than me! Why do you have to make me this angry?! You’ll be lucky if you make it to see the light of day ever again!” When the voices become quieter, I had peeked around the wall which all I saw is the make-up covered bruises return which had been revealed by tears. Seeing this was enough for the echoes of me, more than just a broken child, to grow louder and the tears to return, streaming down my frightened face. The thunderstorm had blown through again leaving more devastation, deepening not only the physical wounds, but the emotional wounds as it feels as though it is piercing hard and harder, deeper and deeper. Just like a knife being twisted in your heart, with the intent to rip it right out.

The last time I heard the voice behind the wall, it was carried on down the stairs and outside. This time, I do not hear the voice of him, the thunderstorm. I hear my mother’s voice. She yells “Nobody is better than my kids and me!” as her head was bashed against the ice of February and the only echo I hear is the one of sirens. The storms’ rescue team is finally coming to our aid. Tears streamed down my face. “Nobody is better than mom.” I had rushed to my mother’s side; red was the only color I saw. But as I looked up I saw my birth father, the man I viewed not as a man, but as the violent thunderstorm, being cuffed and forced into a police car as the red and blue lights flashed at me. A thunderstorm has never been controlled like that. It will not create destruction anymore, but forever it will run ramped through our minds and our memories.

Today, I look at my mother and think of all that she has been through. She was a victim that turned into a survivor. I smile as I look at her as she works tirelessly to help stop the cruel injustice of domestic violence, what our kind of thunderstorm had been classified as. All she wanted was her right to freedom back and now she has it. Her strength is what gets me through as my pain is buried with hers under our souls that are so consumed of hope but the pain, it still remains. I guess we are both survivors.