In the Heart of the Tornado
I was probably about five years old when I lived with foster parents in Bennington, Kansas.
I don't remember everything from that age. Some things disappear over time. But there are certain things you never forget.
This was one of them.
It started out as a beautiful sunny day. Nothing that would make a five-year-old boy think that by nighttime everything around him was going to change.
Later that night, probably around ten o'clock, I remember the wind whistling.
Then something happened that I still remember.
It was like the wind just got sucked up.
Everything stopped.
The calm before the storm.
It started raining a little bit. There was lightning. Then all of a sudden, the siren in town went off.
That's when the whole journey started.
My foster dad grabbed my hand, and we ran toward the cellar on the side of the house. There was screaming. There was crying. There was fear.
Down in that cellar were my foster dad, my foster mother, their oldest daughter and me.
Four people sitting around a lantern.
I can still remember the lantern light and the shadows of us inside that cellar.
I remember clutching my foster mother's clothing and crying.
I was scared.
I had never been through anything like this before.
She kept telling me,
"It's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay. We're gonna be okay."
I kept hearing those words.
But outside, everything kept getting louder.
The wind was whistling underneath the cellar doors while they rattled from the pressure. They were rattling so much that my foster dad grabbed a steel pipe and put it where the door latches were to try to keep those doors closed.
The siren just kept going.
And going.
And going.
It felt like it wasn't going to stop.
You could hear trees cracking and breaking around us. You could hear the lightning striking something outside, and it was so loud.
I was getting cold and shaky.
We didn't have blankets. We hadn't grabbed anything like that.
We just sat there and held each other.
All four of us together around that lantern.
I remember thinking that we would be okay as long as those doors didn't fly off.
That cellar had food in it.
During the summertime, we would can things. We had blackberries. There were wild cherries along the side of the road and mulberries. We had a garden, and we canned tomatoes and other things.
There was plenty of food down there.
But that night, the cellar wasn't about food.
It was protecting our lives.
The rain started coming through the cellar doors. It wasn't flooding, but those doors didn't seal very well.
I remember the water dripping.
And dripping.
And dripping.
Eventually there was a puddle, and we had to move farther back into the cellar away from the doors.
I could see the worry and sadness on my foster parents' faces.
They just kept holding tight.
These were foster parents I will always remember because they were very nice to me.
They didn't abuse me.
That might sound like a strange thing for somebody to remember about people.
But when you're a foster child who knows what abuse feels like, you remember the people who don't hurt you.
After what felt like forever, the wind finally started dying down.
The tornado moved on.
The siren finally stopped.
But we couldn't get out.
Part of a tree was blocking the cellar entrance.
My foster dad had a shovel down there, and he kept using that shovel trying to push the tree branch away from the doors. Eventually he moved it enough that he could get the doors open.
We walked up those cellar stairs and looked outside.
Trees were everywhere.
The house was damaged.
The vehicles were damaged.
And I clung to my foster mother.
I just wouldn't let go.
I can't remember exactly what she said to me.
So I'm not going to pretend that I can.
But I remember the look on her face.
She looked defeated at that moment.
But saved by God's grace.
We survived.
I stayed with those foster parents for about another six months.
Then I was sent away to another foster home.
I don't remember everything about that day either. I was just a child.
But I remember looking into my foster parents' eyes when I was leaving.
There were tears rolling down their faces.
And tears were rolling down mine.
I thought I was going to be adopted.
But I guess my journey didn't end there.
It had to continue.
And after I left them, the abuse would eventually start again.
For years, I wished those foster parents would have adopted me.
Maybe it just wasn't the right time or the right place for that to happen.
I don't even remember their names today.
But I remember their faces.
And as a man today, I realize something that I couldn't completely understand as that little boy.
Those two people really loved and cared about me.
God had a different plan.
He saved me in that storm.
And I've learned through my life that you meet people for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.
Sometimes the people we meet are teachers in different bodies, teaching us unforgettable lessons about ourselves.
Those foster parents were only in one small part of my journey.
But I will never forget them.
When I think about that cellar today, I don't just see a tornado.
I see two angels with their wings wrapped around a little foster child who needed somebody to protect him.
And if those two people were sitting across from me today, after all these years, I know exactly what I would tell them.
Thank you for protecting me when I was a child that needed that love, kindness, and acceptance.
— Jeffrey Badders
