Domestic Abuse from a Child's Point of View: Piecing Together the Scattered Feelings

My earliest memory I am never sure of the exact timeline. I can recall brief snipets, some of them are ones I specifically ordered my subconscious to store while others are best forgotten. One such is of my biological father, a mean and hateful drunk. I remember him being a short but stocky man with thick black curly hair and huge green eyes. His face covered with a thick beard. I don't recall anything else about him.

He is reported to have been a mean and abusive man by my mother. Having never really spent much time with him growing up, I am unsure of the extent of validity to this. I do know from police, court and medical records that my mother suffered heavily at the hands of this jerk.

We lived in an insignificant shack on the edge of Lake Worth. The house itself was weathered and falling apart. It was drafty in the winter and suffocating in the summer. There were two bedrooms in the front of the house while the livingroom and kitchen were in the back. The diningroom served as a focal point in the center with a tiny bathroom off to the side. A washroom no bigger than a closet was added on to the kitchen and served as an extra bedroom for my older brother. A house much too uncomfortablely small for a family with four children.

I remember being very young, perhaps 5 or 6. It is late and very dark outside, my siblings and I were supposed to be in bed. Hearing loud argueing voices, my younger brother and I scramble to investigate. We stop at the doorframe of the diningroom leading into the entryway. My mother, a small woman of statue, is visibly crying and pleading with my father. I don't recall specific words she muttered but I do remember the dark intense static filling the room.