The Beginning

Story Unknown

And in my mind, I drifted back to the earliest time in my life that I can remember. I was about four or five years old. My mother and father, and two brothers, and two sisters, and I lived happily - I felt. Looking back now, I recall that interactions with my father were very few and usually violent. His anger bubbled to the surface often and was usually aimed at my mother. There were beatings, and cursing, and crying out in agony. One day he took me to lunch and a football game. I was too young to recall much more than that. But even to this day it still feels like a great day of fun spent with my father. He seemed to me, to be a caring and gentle man. And the issues that caused his fury towards my mother were too complicated for my young mind. Then the last night that he was in our house he and my mother had a very bad fight. I watched in horror as he dragged her down the stairs by her ankles, enraged, screaming, and name calling. Then just before he stormed from the house he swung and crashed a hammer into my mother's mouth, knocking out her two front teeth. She fell silently to her knees; her head pressed tightly to her lap. The hammer fell to the floor, the door slammed shut, and he was gone. The next time I saw my father I was about twelve years old. He came to visit us at my grandmother's house. He brought clothes and gifts. And when he spoke to me alone, he informed me that he loved me, and that I was not the reason that he was not in my life. I did not understand, and likely will never. When I was about sixteen my aunt was speaking to me at the park one day. And very casually, within our conversation, she informed me that my father had died, after suffering a stroke. I'm not quite sure how I should feel about his death, but I do actually feel sadness. My grandmother and everyone else who was old enough to understand what was happening between him and my mother tell me often that he was a violent, evil, demon, who lived his life to hurt, brutalize, and destroy anyone who crossed his path. But despite all that I 've ever seen or heard, some place deep inside of me will not allow me to hate him. I often think of him and wish that I could have spent more time with him, gotten to know him better, perhaps learned all of the things that every son would like to learn from his father. And sitting here writing this right now, I wonder how he was received by God.