I developed a dislike for my father from the age of three. When people ask me how a three year old could muster such feelings, I would remember the gruff giant who growled at me for leaving my crayons and markers on the carpet. I would remember the iron hand that sliced the air in a microsecond and found rest on my behind. I would hear his enormous steps coming up the stairs, the ones that sent seismic waves through the wooden floors and made me breathe uneasily. I would see all those deep furrows, trenches and crevices that cut deep across his dark face, along his forehead and along the sides of his hollow cheeks. Those fiery eyes would stare back at me as I travelled deeper in thought and then I would hear my father's voice as it boomed and roared. Only my desperate apologies could return it to its monotonous drawl.
Waiting on the porch on Mother's Day 2007
Mommy
That's My MommySomeone notices my 'fifty-mile' stare and they ask me again "Did you hear me, how could a three year old dislike her father?" "Do I really need to answer?" I would think.
When I just turned five, it was my father who decided that I should start sleeping by myself. My mommy was the one who would sit on the edge of my bed and saw to it that I was deep in the world of dreams before she retired for the night. My father was nowhere to be found. The prospect of falling asleep on my own hit me like the heat from a blast furnace for the dark haunted me. Slithery creatures with long talons and pointy teeth appeared as lead stars in my dreary thoughts. I had this idea that if I was left alone they would slither out of every drawer and...