The Night Of My Seventh Birthday

was present at home, my mother attempted to keep the peace. Emotionally, he would erupt in angry over the slightest things. At times, my father subjected violence against my brother and I. He physically abused my brother and emotional abused me. I recall that one night, when I was seven years old, my brother and father were arguing. In a rage, my father hit my brother repeatedly and once he was done hitting him. He threw my brother outside on the porch. I remember that night because it was freezing. My brother had no shirt on and my father locked him out. I cried and so did my mother. After ten minutes of my father blocking the door he eventually walked away and unlocked the door.

I came home one day to see both of my parents sad. As a third grader, I didn’t completely understand at the time, but my father had been laid off from the job he’d had since his teenage years. My father had started at the age of eighteen as a student worker at Southern Miss, and after years of hard work he had been promoted to the manager of shipping and receiving on campus. When the recession struck, the need to save money resulted in his position being terminated. My father was without a job. My father loved that job and when he lost it, he changed. He found a new love, alcohol. He let his love for alcohol become an addiction. He would do anything for alcohol; he even had secret stashes when my mom had removed all the prior alcohol from the house. Quickly my father became a violent drunk and began to routinely beat my mother and me. He became unstoppable; no person could get him back on track so my mother, in an attempt to keep me safe, removed him from the house. Even my mother’s best efforts weren’t always enough, as my father constantly broke into our house. One day my mother and I came home and my father was waiting in our den with a gun. We walked in, he pointed the gun at us, and then back at himself. He couldn’t decide to kill my mother, himself, or just all of us. He had more hatred in his eyes

I woke up at 7AM to continuous, banging on the front door. Next thing I know ten policemen have barged into my room. I’ve not been able to stop replaying the words that came out of my mom’s mouth. They were quivering but sharp, not like the normal sweet and soft sound of her voice in the morning.

“No!” It was my mom’s voice, I ran into the office and saw a gun on the floor, part of the wood chipped out as my dad stormed away. My mom was sobbing, visibly terrified. My mom followed my dad, while Missy took me upstairs with the baby and the pets. She locked the door behind her, and we saw my dad storming away from the garage in his car. After we knew he had pulled away, She led me back downstairs where my mom was waiting for the police. After around three minutes, a police officer arrived. It was after then that my mom made sure my dad couldn’t pick me up from school anymore.

My mother was out of town, so I knew it was not her. I grew afraid of the strange woman in my house, the maroon-colored walls in my bedroom was giving me an ominous feeling, making my room look stained with blood. I went quietly out of my door and down the hallway, knowing that they were arguing in the kitchen by the volume of their voices. I paused in the middle of the hall, unsure whether to continue or to go back to my bedroom. I only decided on the former after I heard a muffled shout and the woman’s voice laughing. This decision was the biggest mistake of my life.

“Welcome home Father! We have missed you so much,” I cried. “Thank you, Mary I’ve missed you as well,” he said with a quick smile quickly turning back into a frown. “What is the matter; did I do something wrong,” I say getting frightened. “Oh no sweetheart, it is definitely not you it’s just that... never mind. Where is your mother?” “She went outdoors to hang the laundry,” I replied, biting my lip knowing that it’s my job to do the laundry.”Thank you,” he yells, already out the door. As I make my way outside, I see my father worriedly talking to my mother as a look of

I am startled awake by a loud bang. I am still tucked neatly under the sheets just as mommy left me before I went to bed, but Big Brother is no longer by my side. I turn to find my bedroom door wide open. I quietly climb out of bed and make my way to the hallway. As I make it to the door there is a sudden scream from downstairs and I know that it is Mommy. I fall to my hands and knees and begin to crawl to the stairs that would lead me to where Mommy was. I am halfway down when I hear Mommy scream, “Don’t you touch him!” I can not see them, but I could hear them. Mommy and Big Brother were screaming while he yelled at them angrily.

My mother and father sat downstairs and talked, Bella sitting with them, while I folded my clothes and put them into my chipped white wooden dresser. I could hear them murmuring between themselves, but I couldn’t hear specific words. My mother came up the stairs about ten minutes later as I was putting the last of my clothes into my dresser. Her five feet two-inch frame stood just inside my door with a Mona Lisa smile. Her eyes were sad and I could tell she was trying to hold back tears. I was confused as to why, and I was going to ask what was wrong, but she told me that my father had something he wanted to talk to me about.

I don’t always have the habit of eavesdropping on people’s conversations, least of all my parents. I didn’t find it necessary. However, on April 7, 2011, I found myself glued to the door of my parents’ bedroom. I had gone to inform my father that we (me, Michael, my younger brother, and Nanies, my young sister) were ready for the week long vacation to the sandy beaches of Key West, Florida. As I was about to knock on the door. I heard a heated argument inside.

I couldn’t bare the idea of losing her. I tiptoed downstairs as silently as possible while frantically scanning the house. I spotted light coming from under the kitchen door which had been left ajar. Hearing hushed screams, I made my way towards it. It sounded like my mother so I peaked inside only to see my father menacingly towering over the kitchen counter and my mother on the other side. I was frozen and just kept looking at them. I shouldn’t have because when I looked closer I saw the hatred in each other’s eyes and something I thought I would never see in my mother’s reddened eyes … tears. My dad’s fists were tightened to the point where his knuckles where white and his face was hard while he spat every single word with venom. I don’t know how my mother managed, but she met his glare and kept her stance while looking equally mad. I couldn’t hear what they where saying at that time because I was so surprised. This scene, I can never unsee. I can’t tell how much time I stayed there watching them, but I deduced that what seemed to be like forever was maybe a few minutes. Thankfully they were so engrossed in their conversation, that they didn’t notice

Ellie and I lay in our beds, neither one of us knew what to say. In the other room, our host parents were arguing. We didn’t know what about, but we knew it was serious. Then we heard a “THWACK” followed by silence. Ellie and I sat up in our beds and looked at each other, I could tell she was as scared as I was. “Was that? Did he just?” she asked me. Then the arguing started back up again. We calmed back down until we heard it again. “THWACK” We knew then, the noise we heard, was him beating her. We got up, our hearts racing; neither of us knew what to do. We got our nerves together to go get help. When we opened the door to our room we saw the children sitting on the couch crying out for their mother. I could see the fear in their face and I knew something needed to change.

As I turned for the stairs, I saw nothing but darkness. I heard my dad's breath of relief and my sisters whispering moms asleep! I quietly went up the stairs and cracked the door open just to make sure she was all right, my eyes widened with disbelief as I saw her perfectly motionless body.  I picked up her arm and it dropped with no reaction. I stood there, staring at her, trying to shake her helpless body.  I noticed foam coming from her mouth. I ran for my dad, as he went up, I listened to him saying “Gina… Can you hear me?” The sound of panic in my dad’s voice threw me into a state of uneasiness. As I watch him carry her to the bathroom to clean her off and  wake her up, I tell myself I knew it. It wasn’t stress, It wasn’t casual drinking, it was her abusing the substance. I was able to confront the truth about my mom, and now it was her

It wasn’t until the morning of Saturday, May 21, 2016 that I realized what the true feeling of unconditional love was. The moment a parent looks into his or her child’s eyes there is just so much love it’s unbelievable. People think they know what love is when they love a significant other, family member, or a close friend; however, that love is nothing compared to the love a parent experiences the day his or her child is born. That is the love I felt the moment I placed my beautiful baby boy on my chest.

It was a bone chilling January night; my mom received a call at about 11:15 PM, a call that changed my life forever. My Aunt June was on the other line. She was crying so hard my mother could barely understand her. Through the sobbing my mom finally understood that Brian, my cousin, had been in a horrible accident and she didn’t know how bad it was. My mother jumped out of the bed after she hung up the phone. She screamed up the stairs at my sister and me; it was a nerve shrilling scream. I could hear fear in her voice. My mom was always yelling at us growing up if we forgot to do something. She would even get us out of bed to finish something that wasn’t done completely. This particular

Devastated, I ran to my room gushing my eyes out. All these emotions going through my head of how my life would be without my parents in the same room or even house. From what I remember it all started about mid-June, the weeks before that were crucial. My parents would always argue over how to deal with a situation between me and my brother, Skyler. They hardly spoke to one another, but when they did they would just start bickering. I remember, one night after dinner they both went into ''their'' room with the door locked yelling at one another. Skyler and I didn’t know what to do, so we went downstairs and tried to figure out what was going to happen. With a scared tone I asked if mom and dad were going to get a divorce?" He answered back '' No, they love each other, they wouldn’t do that to us." That following night, was a school night everything was quiet except for my crying. I couldn’t sleep; all I was thinking about how it's going to affect my family.