We have all been asked at one point in our lives “ Who is your hero? Who do you look up to?”

I suppose it may be stereotypical to say my mom… but it is true. She is not just my hero, she is my savior; my brothers too. I guess I should tell you how she saved my life.

Looking back I was probably about eight years old. Scrawny skinny body, with long lanky limbs and messy black hair. I was defenseless. I heard the purr from my father’s truck and my stomach clenched and I thought I was going to throw up. My mom assured us it would be all right. He came storming in like a stage four hurricane, cursing and yelling. I could see the rage boiling up in those devil black eyes. Who knows what was wrong with him that night.  All I had known was that things were getting worse. He would hit me and my brother. We were used to seeing him hit my mom, but never us. I think my brother Dylan and I had known it was because he was out of the long white pills in his little orange pill bottle. The drugs were the only things he loved.  He downed them like they were a pixie stick.

My mom watched him throw me into the wall of our dining room. Even as small and scrawny as I was, my body put a monstrous hole into the wall. My adrenaline was pumping too hard to even realize my head was pounding and the lights looked like stars. Drywall fell from my clothes and hair.  My mom charged my dad as I ran. I ran as fast as I could to the landline. By now dialling 9-1-1 was a normal thing, but it didn’t mean it as any easier screaming into the phone “ My dad, he has my mom by the neck. She can’t breathe. Please come quick.” The cops came and took him to jail, he always seemed to have luck of the Irish. He would be home two weeks later acting as if nothing had ever happened.

This time when he got home we were all packed up and ready to leave. Ha, more like escape.  We knew we could always retreat to my grandma’s house and be safe. We were ready to walk out the door when he noticed we were leaving. He yanked my mom by her hair and whispered to her “ If you even think about leaving with my kids, I will know where you go. I will come for you guys and burn your mother’s house down. You have nowhere to go. “ He was right, and he was crazy. He never made empty threats. We knew we could not go. We would have to stay and suffer. So we did for a few more weeks.  It was the Fourth of July and we were having fun. Of course my dad was drinking and he got out of hand. I still cannot comprehend why I always tried to stop him from his insane rampages, but I did. This time I could not calm him down and he seized me by my hair and forced my face down onto the scorching hot gril that we had been grilling cheeseburgers on. In my head all I could think was “ Not today, don’t let me die today. I have to protect my mom and brother. “ This time it was not me who saved my mom, but my mom who saved me. She used her super-human strength to pull me up from the grill. We ran, my brother followed behind my mom. I turned back while running to see my dad’s friend, he captured my dad and was holding him back. I could tell he knew this was our only time to escape. His eyes looked sorry. He was sorry for us. My mom started the Navigator and we drove and drove. We were deathly afraid of going to my grandmother’s house for obvious reasons so we ended up in a hotel. The hotel ended up being our home for a few weeks. He could not find us, he knew we were not at my grandma’s so the threat was not as big. He ended up in prison a few weeks later. It was a three year sentence for the usual things, grand theft, domestic violence, child abuse and some misdemeanors too. We went back to our once home that felt unknown to us, we could not live there. He had set it on fire. It was gone, everything was gone. Everything but my family.

We moved into my grandma’s house and tried to restore the peace we once had. My mom is not my hero because she saved me from becoming a burn victim. She is my hero because she kept enough strength and courage to get us out. She made it long enough to save me and my brother from that. She filled my brain with knowledge, wisdom, self-love and courage. She helped me and my brother through our post traumatic stress disorder, she came to the rescue when we woke up drenched in sweat from ugly nightmares. She had her own demons but somehow she put that on the back burner to save us from our demons. Dylan and I are doing fine.  About six years have passed and we are still at my grandma’s. The stress of our deranged past came back to haunt my mom. She had a nervous breakdown and lost her speech for a while. Now it is my turn to be my mother's hero. It is my turn to do what she did for me, she saved my life and now it is my turn to save hers.