Whirling Memories

I sat on the living room couch with my legs tucked under me, my dog beside me, and the eleven o’clock news playing on the television. The infamous red bar flashed across the bottom of the screen. “Tornado watch for the following counties..."

The memories assaulted me as they do almost every time I see or hear the word tornado.



~My very first memory; I must have been three or four.

I sat in the hallway with my back pressed against the wall, and my stuffed dog clutched tightly to my chest. I was terrified; my biggest fear at this time, and for years after, was thunderstorms, and one raged outside. I reached over to grab my younger sister’s hand. I envied her; she did not fear thunderstorms. We sat in the hallway for half an hour, since the radio announced the warning, before my terror gave way to hunger. Just as I decided to travel to the kitchen in search of food, my grandmother returned to the hallway.

“Nana, I’m hungry. Can I get something to eat?” I whined; I felt like I would starve.

“No. You need to stay in the hallway. I’ll go get you something. Okay?” I nodded. Her commanding tone left no room for argument. She returned a few minutes later with a cup of goldfish in her hand. She handed me the goldfish; I munched happily on my snack. When only a few goldfish remained, I took two out and made them swim in the air in front of me, trying to distract myself from the storm outside.



~Another memory comes from a time only a few weeks later.

“If there is ever a tornado you need to get in the bathtub and cover up with the futon,” my mom instructed as she pointed first to the bathtub and then to the green futon resting on the floor in front of it.

“Why do I need to get in the bathtub? What if it flies away with me in it?” I questioned, curious and a little scared.

“Don’t worry it won’t fly away, and you will be safer in it,” my mom assuaged my fears.

I nodded, “okay.”



~A week later.

“Mommy, Daddy, why are you going outside? It’s scary out there,” I asked, afraid for them; there was another thunderstorm. I could hear the wind howling outside and see the sheets of rain obscuring anything more than a few yards away.

“We have to move the cars away from the tree,” my mother informed me. She was referring to the only tree in our front yard-- it was bigger around than I was tall, about four feet. That tree could fall. Now I was really scared. I went to my room, got my favorite stuffed animal, and then headed toward the bathroom.

At this point, I smiled at the irony. A year later, we moved from that house in Tornado Alley, Alabama to South Carolina. Only a few months after the move, we received a call informing us that a tornado hit our old house, nearly destroying it. We were one lucky family.



~The next wave of memories hit me.

We drove up our long driveway as we returned from our vacation in Florida. Tree branches littered the drive. We stopped repeatedly to move the tree limbs out of the way. I asked why there were so many.

“While we were gone a tornado hit close to our house,” my father explained.

When the van came to a stop, my sister and I got out of the car, and noticed our bright green truck just behind the house. We ran toward it.

“Oh my goodness! It’s flipped over!” I exclaimed, awed by a force powerful enough to flip such a large object. Mallory just nodded. We ran back after our parents called us. As we reached the front of the house, my Dad beckoned us forward.

“Look, the tornado moved this column two inches!” He said excitedly, pointing toward the bottom of the nine foot column. I reached over and pushed at the column; it didn’t move an inch and felt like solid rock. Again I was awed by the tornado’s power.

“We’re really lucky we weren’t here, aren’t we?”

~The last memory in my reel arrived. Unlike my previous memories, this time I was at school.

We sat in the hallway, backs pressed against the concrete wall, holding our books over our heads.

“Why do we have to have to hold the books over our head? What’s it going to do?” A fellow student muttered.

“Would you rather have your arm broken or your head broken?” snapped one of the older children. The teachers hushed us. We talked in whispers, trying desperately to distract ourselves from the situation and palpable tension that surrounded us. An hour later a teacher walked into the hallway, and announced that the tornado threat was over. Relief filled the air.



I sighed and flicked off the TV before walking around the house to turn off the lights and lock the doors. I crawled into bed, pulled the covers over my head, and whispered goodnight to my dog. Dreams of flying bathtubs and goldfish whirled through my head.