| Michael from the United States writes:
AN OCCURENCE ON BURWELL AVE
The old house looked the same, a dismal grey. There were cars parked out front. I wondered what the people that lived there now would think, if they knew of the evil that once walked their floors.
I was the only child. My mother was 39 when I was born. It was a good thing, for I would not wish it upon anyone to go through what I did. My mother only had a forth grade education and was raised on a farm. Her father was real strict and beat and abused his children, so it was passed on.
My mother would hang red peppers on the wall. They would dry and become hotter. Sometimes she would grab a red pepper and throw me down and ram it in my mouth. "This is the way it will feel when you go to hell, and there will be no water, for in hell you get no water".
Sometimes when I saw her coming with the red pepper, I would run and jump under the bed. She would grab a broom, lie down on the floor and jab it into me while verbally abusing me, till I crawled out so she could stick the pepper in my mouth. Her favorite phrase was, "You are going to burst hell wide open, when you die".
My mother spent many hours verbally abusing me. She would beat me over the head with broom sticks till there were knotts all over. She even threw hot water on me out of the window while I played in the sand. One day she took me over to a cousin's house. The lady was around 30 and never missed a Sunday in church. I heard my mother tell her in the kitchen,"You know, my son is retarded and don't treat his mother right." My cousin said,"Then he needs to be punished according to scripture!" "Yes, my mother said, according to scripture".
My cousin grabbed me and drug me down the road where a dog had been killed by a car. She lifted me upside down. While swinging me back and forth over the dead dog she said,"Maybe you belong here!"
"The old car pulled into the driveway. As I looked out the window I wondered if he would be drunk again. I would soon get my answer. An object flew at the window where I stood. I leeped back as the window shattered to pieces. My father saw me looking out the window and threw the jack out of the car at me. Now it was time to run, for when he entered the house, no one could stand before him without getting hurt.
My father was a painter by trade and a violent alcoholic by nature. Painting was about the only work he could do, for some of his drunks would last a week or two. We were very poor.
One day my father came home from work drunk and said,"God spoke to me at work and told me to kill you and take my own life!" He ran me with a knife. I barely escaped by crawling under the house, where I slept that night. Another time my father came home drunk. He begin to laugh. "Daddy, why are you laughing", I asked. "Because I have something in my pocket, and I'm going to cut you all to pieces,"he said. Now once again it was time to run for my life.
My father was a quiet man when sober. Alcohol would change him into something violent and evil. He loved to beat me with a fishing rod.
My child abuse story could go on and on. At about age 14 I finally ended up living with one of my grandmothers. She was trying to survive on 65 dollars A months social security. We struggled, but at lease I was alive and away from the abuse. Years later my father would remarry. He married an alcoholic lady he met at a mental institution. Dec 24, 1990 he would put a gun to his head and ended his life. My mother would spend the rest of her days alone living with her insanity.
During my adult years the effects of abuse were there. I had no self esteem. I turned to alcohol. I wouldn't let anyone get close to me. Members of my family said, "Yes your father was a drunk and your mother had problems because of only having a forth grade education. You have lost your mind if you say they did anything to you, they did not abuse you".
Aug, 1990 I had an intense religious experience. I found out God was real. One thing that helped me heal was knowing that when they died they stood in front of God and had to answer for what they did to a little boy years ago.
COLD IT WAS WITHIN THE MANOR, WAITING LIKE a WOUNDED SPARROW, HELPLESS AND FORGOTTEN |
