I’d been counting down the days until his first flight, torn between excitement and dread.
I visited him every day after that, as soon as his mother left to hunt. He just watched me with his wide, unblinking eyes, and I knew he was daring me to reach out and grab him. He never screamed or flinched the way his siblings did when I came to inspect the nest. I always needed my mother’s guidance to make them understand me, respond to me, trust me. I’d never fully connected with a bird on my own before. Goshawks-proud and noble, even with their downy gray feathers and open beaks, waiting for their mother to return. But I was a wispy thing, and my nimble legs had no problem scaling the fragile trunk to reach it. Gavin’s nest was hidden in the thin limbs at the top of the tallest tree, tucked safely out of reach of predators. Just listened and learned.īut the songs of the wind weren’t enough to fill the lonely days. Balanced high in their branches, with the breeze sliding across my skin, I could let the world fall away and open my mind to the whispers of the wind.
I survived the hardest days by seeking shelter in the sprawling cottonwood trees at the edge of the property. The fear hung over us thicker than the clouds. We’d holed up in two tiny houses in the middle of nowhere. Constantly looking over our shoulders for the coming storm. I knew how dangerous it was to call the wind.īack then, guarding the Westons consumed every second of my family’s lives. One isolated memory-and I’m not even sure if it is a memory, or if it’s some strange hallucination my traumatized brain cooked up.Ī face, watching me through the chaos of the storm.Ī girl. Like all my memories were knocked out of my head when I hit the ground. How could I get sucked in by a category-five tornado-nature’s equivalent of a giant blender-get carried over four miles before the massive funnel spit me back out, and only have a few cuts and bruises to show for it? How was that possible, when my parents’ bodies were found almost unrecognizable? The same inescapable question, plaguing me for the last ten years of my life. But that’s the worst part about being “The Miracle Child. It’s not that I’m not grateful to be alive. But trust me, there’s nothing “miraculous” about being orphaned at seven years old. “Family Survives Tornado”-now, that would’ve been a miracle. ” Like the police finding me unconscious in a pile of rubble was part of some grand universal plan. The reporter from the local newspaper even had the nerve to call it a miracle. At least, that’s what everybody keeps telling me.
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