My dad was always a hard-working man. He worked everyday from nine to five and had the weekends off. He was a decent father when he wasn’t in a drunken rage. All them days working and being stressed out didn’t stay in the office. He kept all them emotions bottled up inside and when he opened his bottle of liquor… all them emotions were let out onto us. Every afternoon after the abuse happened, he’d come home with flowers for my mom and candy and toys for my sister and I. “I’m sorry about last night you all. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” I went to school that day with a black eye and i told them my little sister and I had gotten into a fight the night before. He never hit my little sister, but he did verbally abuse her. I was ten when it started becoming pretty regular and I thought it was okay because he always apologized and gave us stuff.

I never knew that it was abuse until i was sixteen and we had to take a domestic violence and child abuse class so we could be able to spot it and act responsibly. I was sitting in my domestic violence and child abuse or DVCA class as the teachers called it when we watched a video. “This may be hard for some of you to watch, but this is real and this happens every day, maybe to even some of your classmates. They will not talk about it because either they’re scared or think it’s normal and I want to let anyone going through this know that it is NOT okay and it is NOT normal.” I sat watching the video and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. A father came home one night in a drunken rage and brutally beat his wife and kids. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. That’s exactly what my dad would do to me and my mom. After he beat his wife and kids, he came home the next day with flowers for his wife and presents for the kids.

I got home that afternoon and my dad wasn’t home. “Hey mom, where’s dad?” “He got called into work today.” “Can I ask you something?” “Anything.” “Do you know dad is abusing us?” “Sweetie, there’s just some things you don’t understand. Your father loves us very much and he just loses his temper sometimes.” “It happens everyday mom. That’s not losing your temper, that’s abuse.” She never said anything so I just walked away and stayed in my room until dinner was ready. I heard my dad yelling and then plates were breaking. I ran downstairs and my mom was on the floor and my dad was standing over her. “I told you that’s not what I want for dinner.” He went to punch my mother and I got in between them and he hit me. That seemed to make him more mad and he just kept beating me and beating me and beating me until I blacked out.

The next day he bought me flowers again and gently placed them on my casket. Yeah mom. Dad loves me very much and he bought me flowers… for the first and last time.