Courage Roughdraft


“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judement that something else is more important than fear.” My mom lived by this quote by Ambrose Redmoon. In our little dungen, we would sit on my bed side by side in my bedroom. I would stare at my mom’s beautiful, curly, red hair, and watch her fake a smile for me as she told me the importance of this quote everynight. I knew that I slowly began to mature, because each night this quote made more sense to me. Each night, I thought of a reason why this quote was so important to my mom. I thought about that little brunette in my English class, and how she stood up for the girl who always sits in the corner. I thought about that girl who sits in the corner, and how just having that one new friend may save her life. Deep into those thoughts came my parents. My abusive, alcoholic dad sat in the living room, right across from my bedroom. I remembered my mom’s face and how as she told me this, her veins filled with pain, and her face filled with anxiety. Slowly, I started to understand my mother. Each day something about this quote made more sense to me.
Until one day, it all came into place. I remember the yelling, and screaming, and I remember the tears that ran down my mom’s poor little face. I remember the fear that I felt, watching my drunken father tear apart my mom, emotionally and physically. I remember watching her, and seeing her as fear replaced all happiness throughout her soul. I envied watching that moment. I envied feeling so helpless, and fearful. My veins filled with various poisons and I felt trapped. I thought to myself, “How could I ever save my mother from this?” “He is way to strong for me!”
My mind went into panic mode, and then froze. I thought and remembered, “My dad has never laid a hand on me, maybe I’m his weakness. Maybe there is hope that this torture could end for my mother.” Despite the fear I felt I knew that I was the only chance that my mother had for survival. Soon she could die from this. Courage stood right beside the fear I felt as I charged toward my dad in hopes to save my beloved mother. I threw myself at my father and he smacked on the floor with his hand in the same position as it was a fraction of a second ago when he raised his hand to torture my mother. He slammed against the wall, and pieces of the wall flew in different directions. I could see anger overflow my father’s veins, and he opened his mouth in a race to say something that would tear apart every emotion that I had, but I beat him.
“Enough,” I scremed at the top of my lungs, “Enough is enough.” “I think its time for you to leave.” My father stared and me and I stared back, but he didn’t seem like my father. I felt like I was staring into the eyes of satin himself. “I don’t have to go anywhere, this is my house!” He screamed and continued to scream, but before he could gather his druken self to move, I had 911 dialed. I told them to hurry, and soon enough the phone disappeared into the whole that my drunken father had imprinted after I threw myself at him. He continued to act tough, and act like he was going to hit me. He threw cuss words at me, and tried to make me feel like a grain of sand, but it didn’t work.
The police arrived within ten minutes, and that was the last I had to deal with my father. While my mother and I gathered ourselves, he would lie in jail, where he belonged with the people who were most like him. That day I realized the full meaning of my mother’s quote. “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.” Meaning that, courage wasn’t me being unafraid of my father, it was the fact that I knew that I had a way around my dad because he feared me. I used that, and faced my fear of him to save my mother from a tragic death. To this day, I live by that quote. The fear I felt only covered a fraction of my brain as I knew that saving the one women, the one parent who I had that was there for me, and crucial to my survival, was one-hundred times more important than the fear that I held. I knew that courage was needed at that moment, and without it, I would have lost her.