The Bull In The China Shop

It was the summer of 1993, I will never forget that warm August day.

I awakened early that morning, the smell of fresh brewing coffee filled the entire house. As I made my way into the kitchen I found my mother preparing a large, delicious breakfast. She had come to stay with me while I recovered from my recent surgery. She looked so beautiful standing in front of the stove with the bright morning sun shining through her silvery hair. A hundred childhood memories flashed through my mind as I stood there quietly and listened to her hum as she flipped the pancakes.

My mother was a firm believer that breakfast was in fact the most important meal of the day. Every single morning she was up and awake before anyone else so that she could have a good, hot breakfast waiting for us. There was always fresh, seasonal fruit, scrambled eggs, bacon, and pancakes. On the weekends she would wake up even earlier to make her famous biscuits and chocolate gravy. She was famous amongst my friends, they all wanted to spend the weekends at our house because they loved my mama's chocolate gravy so much.

A wave of sadness filled my heart as I noticed how frail that she looked. She had slowed down a lot over the years, especially since my dad passed away. I had planned on asking her to stay with me permanently, it would be good for the both of us. I was waiting for the perfect moment to have that conversation with her.

As I poured myself a cup of coffee, I noticed that the thermometer hanging on the window read 90 degrees. "That's impossible!" I said as I tapped the gadget gently. "It's only 8:30 am, surely it isn't already 90 degrees outside!" Mama looked away from her pancakes just briefly enough to flash a smile in my direction. "The weatherman is calling for storms this afternoon, they'll probably move in early. It always gets sweltering hot before a good storm," she replied.

As I sat down at the table I noticed that she was giving me one of those worried looks. "You look pale, are you feeling all right?" she questioned as she placed a plate full of eggs and bacon in front of me. I didn't want to admit that I hadn't been sleeping well. I was concerned that my incision wasn't healing properly. The last thing that I wanted to do was cause her to worry more than she already did. "I'm fine," I fibbed as I quickly tried to change the subject. "The sunflowers are looking magnificent!" I gestured toward the window.

After breakfast, I picked up the book that my mother had suggested that I read. "Where the Crawdads Sing" I stretched out on the sofa and began turning the pages. My eyes grew heavy as the medication prescribed by my doctor began to take effect.

Suddenly a loud bang caused me to jump from my nap. The wind outside had caused the back screen door to slam dramatically. As I struggled to gain my focus I heard the grandfather clock chime two magical tones. "Mama! Have I really been asleep for five whole hours?" She didn't reply, I looked around and found her sitting on the porch watching the storm move across the mountains. "It's gonna be a bad one." She announced as I sat down beside her. "Mama, maybe we should go back inside," I suggested as the clouds grew darker and more threatening. "Oh I'll be along momentarily," she replied. "Your father always loved to sit outside and watch the storms move in." I could hear the tremble in her voice, so I sat back down and took her hand in mine. "Mama, I would really like for you to stay with me for good. I love having you here and we're both lonely living all alone." She turned and stared at me without saying a word. Her gentle smile made me believe that she had agreed to my offer.

Suddenly the sky fell eerily silent, not even the birds were chirping. Debris began twirling through the air as that horrible sound filled my ears. The sound of an angry, raging bull plowing through the house. I could hear glass breaking and the back door slamming over and over. The wind grew so loud that it was deafening. I turned and reached for mama but she was gone. "Mama!" I yelled as I ran into the house searching for her. Frantically I ran from room to room screaming as loud as I possibly could. "Where are you!?" Where could she have gone? She was sitting right beside me.

I felt a stabbing pain run through my body as I noticed that my surgical incision had opened. I was bleeding heavily and I could feel myself getting light-headed. "Mama please answer me!" I called out. I looked up just in time to see a huge hole rip through the roof. Picture frames blew off of the walls and knickknacks were falling off of shelves. The porch swing that I had just been sitting in with mama was now inside of the living room. The kitchen was covered with yellow petals from the sunflower garden outside. All of the windows were gone, only torn and tattered red curtains were left blowing in the wind. I felt something warm hit my face, and then there was only darkness.

When I next opened my eyes, I was being carried out of the rubble by strangers, people that I had never seen before. A bandage covered the left side of my face. "The kitchen cabinet blew apart, the door almost took your head off. You're one lucky lady!" a strange man tried to assure me as he sheltered me from the rain. "Where's my mama!" I yelled. The pain was overbearing and my vision was growing dark. They placed me in the back of a rusty, red pickup truck and covered me with blankets. There were several people riding in the front, all of whom appeared to be terribly injured.

After arriving at the hospital I was immediately rushed into surgery. It wasn't until hours afterward that I was informed that my mother had perished in the tornado. Tears fell from my eyes as I pictured her tiny body being swept away in the wind. The more that I thought about it, I wondered if she planned for it to happen that way. She was more than ready to go be with my daddy. She knew that the storm was coming, I pleaded with her to go inside. The way that she smiled at me just before the tornado touched down. Although the grief was insufferable it came with a small slither of peace.

Suddenly I remembered something that she had said earlier that morning while we were having breakfast together.

"When I first met your father he was a furious bull, and I was a china shop with beautiful red curtains."

It didn't make much sense to me then, in fact, I didn't really think much of it. My mother was always quoting from books that she had read. But then that horrific sound of the tornado ripping through the house like a "raging bull". How fragile and delicate that mother looked that morning "like a china shop". The vision of the torn, tattered red curtains blowing through the wind. It all made sense to me, no matter how mad that it may sound. "My father had come to get my mama, the storm carried him in and when they left, she had gone with them."

Now both of my parents are laid to rest in the grassy field behind my house. I walk out to visit them every evening as the sun is sinking behind the mountains. Some people might laugh or think that I have completely lost my mind. I placed a bull figurine on my father's grave and a beautiful china doll on my mother's. That's how it all began and that's how it ended. Exactly the way that it was meant to be.