Tornado!

It is weird the things you remember. Being only five, you wouldn't think she would remember anything. Though such an event leaves an impression.

Mid afternoon, they, her brother and herself, lay on the living room floor, eyes glued to Sesame Street. It was a strange still day, hot for April. Their dad had a friend over.

The adults were talking in the dining room. It had a big picture window looking out over a backyard big enough to be called a field. The suburb was full of families, with the older kids just arriving home from school, a blessing as it turns out.

She never knew which adult saw it first. A scream, their mom's, jerk their heads towards them.

A huge tornado is making its way towards them. Its width seems to fill the entirety of the window.

“The kids! Grab the kids!” her dad had never sounded so queer. His voice was always firm. There was a shake in it. This scared her more than big thing moving towards them did. She hadn't yet the vocabulary to describe it.

Her dad jerks her up. Her mom grabs her baby brother, two years younger. They all start to run.

Their car was a Volkswagen Bug. Dad and his friend climb in the front. He hands her over to her mom.

“Place them on the floorboard. Lay over them.” She remembers her dad saying. The floor? Why the floor. Her baby brother is crying.

“Monster gets us?” She asks.

“No.” she believes him. Her dad was still a strong man, a protector in her eyes. He pulls out and pushes the Bug as fast as it will go.

“Keep your heads down.” Their mom orders. She takes her brother's hand.

There is a roar, like a train behind them. No train tracks that way though.

“Cho Cho coming.” her brother says. Her mom lets out a groan. She will be much older when she finds out why. One of their neighbors has her child on the front porch, “To see the tornado!’ The baby, a mere toddler, is ripped from her arms. His body is found in the cemetery.

She knew none of this at the time. Only that a monster is after them and her daddy was getting them away.

“Please God!” He keeps praying over and over.

She doesn't know how long they drive or when the monstrous thing stops roaring behind them.

A friend ‘s house, the next town over, is where they arrive. She doesn't know it then but her daddy has outran a Cat Five tornado in a Volkswagen Bug! It is a miracle.

Later, her dad writes an article for the local paper in which he states that there were six people in the car, himself, his wife, his friend, his daughter and son, and God. That is still a ways off.

It is a few days before anyone other than rescue and recovery crews are allowed into the subdivision of Arrowhead where they used to live. X’s mark the driveways all over Xenia where the rubble has been searched.

Her dad drives in once he is allowed. When he returns, it is the first time she sees him cry.

“There is nothing. Everything is gone. Flat. Arrowhead is no more.”

“The monster ate it all up.” She explains to her brother. It is the only way she understands it.

They stay with her grandparents. Her mom's parents were blessed not to lose their home. “Just a bit of roof damage.” Her grandpa says, “We stayed in the basement.”

From that point until his death, every storm, no matter its size, finds him there.

They have insurance and the house is rebuilt. An amazing thing is discovered during clean up, her brother's tonka trucks! They survived, relatively unscathed. As did their puppy, though poor Tippy wasn't able to return to them. He was far too skittish and was rehomed with her great Aunt Mary.

They were lucky. So many people died. Still they weren't the only miraculous story. The high school, who's auditorium would have been filled with students practicing for the spring play, had the twister hit an hour earlier, was completely destroyed.

Miracles and deep sorrow filled her hometown. A tornado shelter is built and a siren sings out whenever the wind picks up.

They try to live there but too many fears remain. A year after the house is rebuilt it is put on the market. They move to Kentucky by her daddy ‘s kin.

There is when the true force of the Tornado hits. He changes from a strong dependable man to another type of monster. Things she keeps buried that he was doing, they rise to the surface with a Pappa that is doing the same.

Her big bright room in her house becomes a tiny room in a trailer, a room from where her daddy slips in at night. She dreads the sunset and bedtime.

He starts to drink heavily and use drugs. They hear them fighting and the sound of his hands and fists hitting their mom's flesh. Theirs aren't spared either.

Years later, when her mom finally leaves him, and they head back to Xenia, is when the storm finally ends, the monster stops chasing them.

She wonders what if? What if the tornado hadn't come through? If they didn't have to move? Would the monster that was barely under control be kept hidden? Would the man who prayed his way through that horrible drive, remained? Or was it meant to rip through their life? It led to her and her brother finding Christ in a small Kentucky church.

Many more years later, she learns from her step-mom that her dad had returned to the faith of that terrible day. He told her all about his sins towards his children and their mom, repenting of them.

Unfortunately, he died before he could apologize to them. She has faith though, that one day in heaven, she will be enfolded safely

in her daddy's arms again, like she was on the day of the tornado.