Notes

My Testimony

My earliest memory is that of when I was five years old standing over the kitchen sink, probably on a stool, washing dishes. We had already eaten dinner and my dad wasn't home yet and my mother wasn't happy about it. So, I was trying to make her happy by doing the dishes. I'm the second oldest of the four children they had together, all girls. And, I've learned over the years that the second oldest is the caregiver and the peacemaker of the family dynamic. My mother was sitting at the dinner table, we'd already cleaned off, sewing our clothes. My father was a meat inspector for the state of Arkansas and he was a functional alcoholic, meaning that he drank and got drunk often, but was able to hold down a full-time job. However, our lives were very dysfunction, of course, I had no idea it was anything but normal. When my father finally got home that night, he and my mother immediately started arguing. I kept washing dishes as if nothing was happening, hoping to make them both happy. All through my growing up, my father never cared about my grades as long as I made a "C" or above and he told me exactly that. And, he didn't pay much attention to us, unless we were in trouble. Except, when I cleaned and or organized the house, refrigerator, and kitchen cabinets. Then, he raved about how well I performed the task. I remember always trying to please him and to calm him. If he said, "Jump!," I'd say, "How high?" If my siblings were arguing or doing something I didn't think he'd approve up, I would try to make them stop so they wouldn't make him mad and get in trouble, i.e. get yelled at or get a spanking. When dad was yelling at mom and she wouldn't look him in the eye and continued sewing, he got furious and yelled at her, "You better look at me when I'm talking to you!" And, he slapped the sewing machine off the kitchen table, like he was the incredible hulk, and it slide all the way across the kitchen floor and I could hear it coming right at me. I jumped just in time for it to miss my legs or it probably would have broken them and I let out a scream. My dad turned and yelled and pointed at me, "Go to your room now!" I ran as fast I could crying to my big sister, Diane. She tried to calm me and my younger sister. The youngest was a baby and in the crib. After awhile we got scared for Mom and went crawled out of the room to peek around the kitchen wall and see what was going on. Our dad was threatening to kill our mom and when we peeked around, he was holding a gun to our mother's head and we all screamed, "Don't kill our mom!," "Please don't kill our mom!" Dad yelled at us to get back to our room. Best I remember he pulled the triger and the bullet got lodged in the chamber, but I'm not 100% sure on that part. Like I said, I was only five! I don't remember what happened the rest of that night, but she survived, is still living, and the eventually divorced. Thank God!