The House, the Rain, and the Cardinal

After spending the night at my aunt’s house following a concert together, I decided to take the long way home the next morning.

For a long time, I had been thinking about driving by my Grammy and Grampy’s house one last time to say goodbye.

That house holds a lifetime of memories for me. Some beautiful. Some painful. It was where birthday parties happened, holiday meals, summer afternoons. The smell of coffee brewing in the kitchen. The sound of television softly humming while my grammy moved around the house. It was where I laughed as a child. Where I tried to feel normal. Where I searched for safety in the middle of chaos.

It was also the place where I was abused in all ways a person could be.

The place where pieces of my childhood were stolen from me before I was old enough to understand what was happening. The place where fear learned my name. Where I lost what little innocence I still had.

I hadn’t been back there in a very, very long time.

For years, I avoided that road completely. I convinced myself I was fine not looking back. But trauma has a way of quietly living inside you, even when you think you’ve outrun it. Sometimes it waits in silence until you are close enough to feel it breathing again.

As I got closer, my body began reacting before my mind could fully catch up. It’s amazing what the body remembers, even after decades have passed.

When I passed Pirate’s Cove Ice Cream, my chest started tightening.

My breathing changed.

My hands gripped the steering wheel harder.

As I turned down the street, panic started creeping in like a storm cloud moving over me. My heart raced so hard I could hear it in my ears. My stomach twisted. Every instinct in my body told me to turn around.

But I didn’t.

Trauma lives in the nervous system. Sometimes even roads remember.

And that road remembered everything.

I kept driving anyway.

The closer I got, the smaller I felt. Like somewhere inside me, the little girl who survived there had suddenly woken up again. I could almost feel her sitting beside me, scared, frozen, silent, trying to make herself small enough to survive.

So much around the area had changed over the years. Different houses. Different cars. Different people. Time had moved on for everyone else.

But the house itself still stood there, almost frozen in time. And suddenly I was staring at the place that held both love and devastation at the exact same time.

That contradiction is one of the hardest parts of surviving abuse. Sometimes the places that hurt us are also tied to the people who loved us. And that can make letting go incredibly complicated.

It felt fitting that the morning was rainy and drizzly. The sky was gray, heavy, almost mourning with me. Rain has always felt symbolic to me, washing away, cleansing, release. The kind of weather that holds emotion gently instead of asking you to hide it.

I stood there for a while just staring at the house.

At the windows.

At the driveway.

At the life that once existed there.

I thought about the little girl who walked through those doors carrying fear she could never explain. The little girl who learned too early how to stay quiet. How to survive. How to disconnect from herself just to endure what was happening around her.

I wished I could go back and hold her.

Tell her none of it was her fault.

Tell her she deserved protecting.

Tell her she deserved softness and safety and love.

But instead, all I could do was stand there in the rain and finally acknowledge what that house really was to me. Not just a home filled with memories.

But a graveyard for parts of my childhood.

And somehow, realizing that didn’t destroy me the way I thought it would. Because for the first time, I wasn’t there as the powerless little girl anymore.

I was there as the woman who survived. The woman who found her voice. The woman who wrote the truth anyway. I realized then that this was my goodbye. Not just to the house, but to the part of me still emotionally tethered to it.

I never want to go back there again.

And then something happened that I will never forget for the rest of my life.

In the middle of all the anxiety, grief, memories, and trauma responses, a cardinal flew directly toward me and landed softly on my shoulder.

For a few seconds, we just stared at each other.

Completely still.

Completely quiet.

Then the bird looked toward the house.

And I smiled through tears.

Before it finally spread its wings and flew away.

My Grammy loved birds. Cardinals were always her favorite.

When I was a child, she was my safety. My protector. One of the few people who truly made me feel loved, wanted, and seen in this house of dysfunction.

She was warmth in a place that often felt cold.

And in that moment, standing there saying goodbye to one of the hardest chapters of my life, it felt like she had come to see me off.

Like somehow she knew I needed one last moment of comfort before letting it all go.

Like she wanted me to know she was still with me.

That I survived.

That I made it out.

That it was finally okay to leave this place behind.

It was one of the most beautiful and spiritual moments I have ever experienced.

I went there carrying anxiety, fear, grief, and old wounds.

But I left with peace.

Not because the past changed. Not because the pain disappeared. But because for the first time, that house no longer felt bigger than me.

And somehow, in the middle of the rain, a cardinal reminded me that love survived there too.

Sometimes closure doesn’t arrive loudly.

Sometimes it lands softly on your shoulder in the rain.

— Shannon Brown

Author | Survivor | Advocate

Continue Following the Journey

If this story resonated with you, there are many more conversations surrounding healing, survival, resilience, music, and hope waiting for you.

The Survivors’ Anthem Series

Music has always been part of survival for many of us. The Survivors’ Anthem Series explores the songs that helped survivors feel seen, understood, empowered, and less alone. Through blog posts, playlists, and community submissions, the series creates space for healing through music and storytelling.

The Jane Project

Everyone has their own “Jane.”

A person, object, song, toy, memory, or place that helped them survive.

The Jane Project is a growing survivor-centered initiative focused on honoring those quiet anchors that carried us through impossible moments and reminding survivors that they are never truly alone.

Get Your Copy of Because of Jane

If you would like to continue the journey, Because of Jane is available in Kindle, paperback, hardcover, and audiobook formats.

The award-winning memoir explores childhood survival, resilience, imagination as protection, and ultimately reclaiming your voice after trauma.

Because sometimes surviving is only the beginning of the story.

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