Craig is a hurricane. He is a pernicious storm delivering nothing but havoc and destruction. This bipolar alcoholic is more destructive than most hurricanes the world has seen. He rips your emotions apart as a storm would do to a home. Once he is intoxicated, the skies around you darken like the deepest parts of the ocean. Then, his torrential rain showers over you until you become flooded with humiliation. When he is finished, your love feels abandoned.  He is a cyclone; Craig is my dad.

As a person, Craig is present; however, as a father, he is absent. To compensate the lack of time being shared, as a child, I was showered with “gifts”. The time left desolate was made up with movie tickets and video games. At a young age, however, I did not know these gifts were given out of self-guilt. I thought my dad was my sunshine. He opened the sky and painted it with light blues and cirrus clouds of white. When it did rain, though, he was my umbrella.

Growing older, I notice holes throughout this umbrella. When it rains, the water maneuvers its way through and touches my skin. I feel vulnerable. Come night, I receive a call from a man in a drunken stupor who is enraged. This anger was not caused by his daughter, but his own issues. Still, I am the victim. I realize then, he is not my umbrella or my sunshine. My dad is my rain.

There is nothing better than maturing and knowing how far you have come from challenges you have faced. My dad is my rain, but everything around me is my sun. I am a rainbow. I am the iridescent colors coming across the sky after a malicious storm. I used to always look back on the undesirable acts of my dad when I was younger. All I had towards him was anger and resentment, and I used these awful feelings toward people who did not deserve the pain I felt. Now, I have learned from my past. I have realized that there is nothing I can change, so I transform my pain into something beautiful.

I am a rainbow full of drive; I have no ending. I listen to others because my dad did not hear me. I understand others because my dad would not let me speak. I received an indirect lesson from him on how to persevere. I continue to take action whether or not I am faced with difficulty. I know how to treat those who I care about correctly. My dad taught me I will not become the adult he is. Because I love him, I will never be him. There will be no confusion between the two of us because I am a rainbow, and he is a hurricane.