Storm Cellar

Basement is too nice of a word for the dank room beyond the door with a wooden Z. The room’s cement floor angled ever so slightly and rain seepage always found it’s way to the drain leaving  crooked and wet paths. Giant left over oil drums housed long thick wooden planks, which, we huddled under during the all too often and always violent midwestern tornado season. After years of holding the harvest’s bounty and way before a basement remodel, the room was nothing more than a man-made storm shelter. We couldn’t get down from the upstairs fast enough when our parents gave the call to head to the basement. Not once do I remember Dad squatting with us under the homemade barricade. No, his position was just outside the cellar door watching the sky. It was in this room of nothing in the southwest corner of the farmhouse where we huddled together in our shoes and pajamas. It was there we felt safe.

 
Sometimes the storms aren’t F-5’s or Category 3’s that do the most damage. 

They’re a tremor in the hand, which used to be strong. 

They’re human attempts at unconditional love that rip through the heart leaving little hope in its wake. 

Questions and prayers left unanswered turn into aftershocks. 

Bitterness gone unchecked and dreams never realized find the path of least resistance, but never the drain. 

It's hard to decipher between tears of loneliness, regrets or mistakes. They’re inseparable in their mocking, like the rain pelting at the windows, or is it the wind? 

Unfairness in a world gone mad floods over the soul like a tidal wave, choking out measly efforts to change the world and dash our quest for inner peace and true happiness. 

A stalled heart.

And always, lingering on the reality horizon is the beginning of the end in the unstoppable circle of life.

 
At the edge of despair, I look up and see the Father standing guard, watching the sky.

If peace be in your heart

The wildest of storms is full of solemn beauty

The lightening flash shows but your path of duty

Each living creature tells some new and joyous story

The very trees and stones all catch a ray of glory

If peace be in your heart.

Charles Francis Richardson