Dad

I want to start this blog first by saying that I love my father, and while these stories are true and very rough... he is my dad we have moved past this and are stronger and closer than ever now!

My First Memory of my Father:

"WHO DID IT????" he screamed out. As I knealt down by the side of the couch I remember being so scared and thinking "Oh know someone is in really big trouble" and wishing that my mom was around so that nothing bad would happen and my brothers and sister wouldnt be hurt. "WHO DID IT? THERE IS A HUGE SCRATCH DOWN THE SIDE OF MY CAR!!"

I found out later that my dad had made my sister take the garbage out. The bag was nearly her same size and she had no shoes on. She dragged the bag from the garage out to the curb where the can was and in the process scratch the side of my dads car with the bag by accident. Not only that she stepped on glass and had shards of glass embedded in her feet. Which my grandmother later pulled out one by one as she screamed out in pain.

Of course with my dad yelling the way he was no one wanted to take the blame for the scratch. So my brothers recieved a horrible belt beating that day. I can still hear the screams in my head.

Safety until that one awful day.

My father never hit my mother to my knowledge but he had know problem taking his aggression out on his children. I was fortunate enough to not have to suffer other than emotionally from his beatings for a long time. Maybe because I was young. Maybe because he had my brothers and sister to use for that. Maybe because a part of him knew what he was doing was wrong. But eventually my brothers grew up and moved out and went to college etc and my sister and I were left.

We were living in the farm house in Des Moines the first time I felt the wrath of anger. Only to my surprise it didnt come from my father. It came from my brother Lee Jr. I said the wrong smart ass comment to him and he pushed me down onto the stairs but before i made it down he caught me with his strong hands and proceeded to hit kick and punch me. My sister broke it up and I didnt talk to my brother for months.

I was scared that he had learned this horrible trait from my father. I wasnt really scared for myself, I was scared for Karla his new wife, and their beautiful new baby Lee III. I didnt want my nephew to live the life we had. True we all knew our father loved us and that he did his best to provide for us and we went on amazing vacations because of him (Disney World, Cocoa Beach, Etc), but i didnt want all that pain for that precious baby.

My brother never laid a hand on me since that day. Even though he never officially apologized to me he found a way to make it right. I think that that day woke him up and made him realize that was not the path he wanted to go down. I love my big brother with all my heart and I know he had it the worst and he had to grow up and learn from his mistakes and I am proud of him and what he has accomplished with his life so far. More on that later though.

Soon Lee joined the military and Tom went away to college. We moved into a new house just in time for me to start middle school and Sherri to start her sophmore year in high school. Karla and the baby moved in with us too and life was good for a while. Dad's outbursts were becoming less frequent and we actually seemed happy.

Then we got news that Lee was being sent home early from Boot Camp. Once again our lives were about to change.

~Stephanie~