“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” - Albert Camus

I remember growing up in a house where my mother spent for time protecting me than coddling me. I even remember scared to go downstairs—that is the hardest part to understand.

It is difficult to understand what living scared feels like. It is difficult to understand what it is like to live in a room meant for one person with your mom, brother, and dog. You share a queen-size mattress that takes up every desperate inch of your floor space. You barely have enough energy each morning to drag yourself out of bed and squeeze past the paint chipped dresser and step over the shoe box your dog sleeps in so that you can look into a shattered mirror, unable to comprehend what you see and why you don’t like it.

It is impossible to comprehend at age 10 why the doors in your house have locks on them, or why the pots in the kitchen are missing, or why your mother can’t cook for you tonight. You still don’t know why you are afraid to sleep alone and you don’t know why he just hit you. You wonder when the hand-print will disappear, or why it hurts so much or why you can’t hold back the tears. You don’t know why you just dialed 9-1-1 or why the operator seems so comforting or if “everything will (actually) be alright.” You wonder why the bruises fade so slowly and wonder why the pain inside lingers while the red palm on your cheek starts to retract. You are left broken, crumpled, and silent.

My parents split when I was four, and pretty soon my mom remarried my (ex) step-father. Everything seemed peachy until they started fighting; we were left to fend for ourselves inside what seemed like hell. Living scared is not easily understood, and I didn’t realize it then, but the emotional abuse my mother endured every day to make sure we had a roof over our heads wasn’t worth the pain. She couldn’t even put hot meals on the table since my step-dad locked away all of the pots and pans—probably out of spite, I honestly couldn’t tell you why. He locked a lot of things actually, most of the doors, my mother’s clothes, the money. Consequently, my entire world was telescoped into the crowded bedroom I retreated into every day.

Peculiarly enough, yelling was normal. Silence was what you were actually afraid of, but I’ll never forget the day the house fell completely silent. I had pissed off my step-father with some remark about how he wasn’t actually my real dad. Without hesitation, his hand came down like the way those meters close to keep cars from passing across the railroad tracks, except a lot faster. The pain of being hit that time felt as if the bottom of a hot pan was pressed against my cheek. Silence enveloped the entire first floor and crept upstairs to where my brother was sleeping and all was still in that moment until my mother cried out in an explosive rage; yelling, crying, frantic moving—and my mother tore my crumpled body away from him.

Today, my mother likes to think I’m void of emotion, but I guess I push people away because I’m afraid of what could happen to me. It’s not the physical pain that burdens me anymore either—I have learned that discomfort is temporary—but I never want to be in the place that my mother was in. She is the strongest woman I know, and her ability to get us out of the abusive hole we called a home took more strength than I could even fathom at the time. Her courage is something I admire to no ends, and her curiously aesthetic disposition is inspiring.

It was impossible for me to realize at age 10 what my experience would mean to me, but now I am thankful I had the opportunity to come from a place of silence in order to understand the value of speech. My mother protected me when I couldn’t, but my abusive childhood proved to be the reason I am so independent today. He was pain and I was cowardice—I was left silent. But now they are envy and I am free—I am strength.

I could not ask for a better role model, mother, or friend. Mom, you are the parent that all my friends envy; you are beautiful, radiant, and hilarious—you light up any room you step into. You taught me that life is too precious to be spent looking in broken mirrors and that sometimes you have to take a bold step in the other direction to see yourself the way everyone deserves to be seen—strong.

Thanks for always being there; I admire you indefinitely.