“My father showed up at my mother’s job with a gun and shot her three times …”
What is the first thing you remember as a child? How old were you? I was one week shy of my third birthday and I was visiting my mom and new baby brother in the hospital. The next memory was when my little brother was an infant and crying. My father picked my brother up and lifted him with his back toward the ceiling of our living room and began roughly rubbing his back on the coarse texture. I had no idea what was going on nor could I process what I was seeing. In fact, the memory only became clear much later in my life.
Our house was like a roller coaster of happy times and very dark times. When my father was up he was very up. The sky was the limit to what he could do. On the flip side, there weren’t any depths to how dark he could get. His alcoholism only made things worse. Everything went in cycles, happy times for 3-6 months then a cloud would form and stay over us for a month or two. My mother endured as much as she could to keep him away from my brother and me. But no one was off limits when he was in a mood.
Guns, closed fists, curtain rods and belts. Those are all things that my father would threaten or beat my mother and broth with. He would hit, choke and verbally berate my mother to no end. Guns were his favorite to go and he loved to take them out and shoot holes all over the house. One time, he shot his gun off in his bedroom that was across the hall from mine as I was about to open my door. The bullet whizzed past my face and lodged in the wall behind me. Just 1 ½ inches to the right and I would have been dead.
We never knew what we were walking into from one day to the next. In fact, we had a system to warn each other. If “Daddy” was home, everything is ok. If “Jake” was home, stay away! Calling the police or reaching out for help was out of the question. We knew if we did he would “take them out or go down fighting”. So we walked on egg shells and lived in shadows.
After nearly 20 years of living in fear, shame and pain my mother had enough. We went into hiding and she filed for divorce. But that didn’t end my father’s tirades. Over the course of 8 hours one day in October 1989 our nightmare came to an abrupt and expected end. My father showed up at my mother’s job with a gun and shot her three times. After holding a SWAT team at bay for several hours he shot himself.
It has been 26 years. My mother survived her wounds and traveled a long road to physical and emotional recovery. Our nightmare ended and we were set free. Recovery from abuse isn’t easy and it takes a long time. But it is so worth it! You may feel alone and isolated, but you have resources. You have suffered and survived to this point and that means you are strong. You have the strength within to do something. Even it that something is just letting someone else in on your secret and being open to assistance. Healing is a daily process of constant reminders of behaviors are and are not acceptable in all relationships.
Life is good now! I am a strong woman because my mother is a fighter. She fought for her life. She fought for our lives and I am so grateful for her!
Posted by on 20 Oct 2015