Fond Memories

I lived in Kansas Up until the time I was 12 , when i moved to SoCal with my Grandparents. My mom lived with us until I was maybe 7 when she left for New York with her new guy, the rest of the time was with my Dad. I don't remember much about that time in my life and the few memories I have aren't the greatest. Screaming and fighting and drug abuse were the norm. FIghting(and I mean fighting) were the brunt of it. I do remember a few of the worst fights. Like I can remember the time my mom came home and found dad with a bunch of people drunk off their asses and my mom taking a bat to my dad and breaking his wrist, or maybe the time that she threw the ginormous crystal ashtray at him and it split his arm all the way up from the wrist to his elbow. He of course had to drive himself to the hospital, Blood was everywhere. None of those compare to "The Fight"

This was the time that I remember the most, was easily the worst fight i've ever seen period. I can really remember it clear as day, like a shitty movie or song that gets stuck in your head and you just can't fuckin get rid of it. I've had more than my fair share of nightmares about it. I was 6 years old and my little sis was 4. Being raging alcoholics and drug addicts, infidility ran rampant in our household. If it wasn't my Mom then it was my Dad. They made no attempts to hide it from their children either. One day, not long before my mom left, my dad came home and found my mom with his good, if not best friend "D". Mom and "D" were drunk as all hell of course and i'm pretty sure hopped up on some type of illegal substance(s). My Dad Worked the day shift on the Oil Rigs and had just gotten home from work. My sister and I were asleep in our beds in the basement when I heard it. I remember waking up to a really loud noise, something akin to a house being blown apart by dynamite. I ran up the stairs to see what was going on and as I turned the corner to the main room, I saw my dad(or at least he looked like him) on top of "D" beating the shit out of him. I knew this wasn't my dad at this point. The dad that I knew was now somewhere hidden in the farthest reaches of this guys head that was beating the life out of "D". My mom was on the ground about 10 feet behind where my Dad and "D" where when i saw her get up run up behind my dad, and tried to pull him off, bad move on her part. My dad just hauled off and with the back of his hand knocked her a good 10 feet back. Dad keep beating on "D" until there was nothing left at all to recognize him. Again, it looked like a slaughter house, there was blood everywhere. On clothes, bodies, floor, walls, windows, etc.. My Dad realized "D" wasn't fighting back or even moving at this point. He got up off of "D" and grabbed my mom off of the floor like a rolled up carpet.

Before I finish this, let me give you a layout of our house. We lived in a two story tall house, Though it wasn't really two stories. There was a really large basement(it's the midwest remember), but it actually raised above the ground almost a full story. the stairs to the front porch actually led up past the basement to the main part of the house, where the front room, kitchen, etc. were located. So the main part of the house was a good 10 - 20 feet from ground level. The kitchen had a fairly large garden window in it. The kitchen subsequently was where all of this was going down. I'm pretty sure that you can all can guess where this is headed. so...

After my dad stopped hauling off on "D" he went and grabbed my mom, who was well past innebriated and still stunned from the back hand my dad had given her. Mom was pretty much a rag doll at this point. He was holding her up against the wall with one hand and pummeling her with the other one. Dad(Or what of Dad there was there) with strength no one could possibly knew existed, threw my Mom out of that big garden window into, thank goodness, the bushes below. He stood there for a few minutes and turned to looked at me, who was completely stunned, and my little sister who was screaming and crying hysterically. At that point he turned from the anger induced hulk he was for the past 15 minutes(Though it felt like hours) back to the father that we knew. He got down to our level, which he always did to talk to us, told us that he loved us more than anything and would be back later. We didn't see him for quite a while, i would say a couple of months. When Dad finally came home, mom moved out, i saw her one more time about a month later and after that, well, everyone knows that story.

This is not a "my life was shitty, pity me" post, nor is it a "Fuck the world, it sucks" post. Instead, it is more of a post for those(you know who you are) that feel like life is nothing but shit. No matter how bad it is, there is always someone in the world going through worse. We can't control the paths our lives take sometimes. It's like being in a plane going through some really bad turbulence, you have to realize that you can't force it back to normal. All you can do is just relax, smile and wait it out, life WILL get better. There is no doubt.