The year that my dad left my family was one of the worst years of my life. I was only 10 years old, It was as if he was just became bored with us and decided to leave us. I was just sitting in my room quietly and I went to my mom’s mom room. I saw my huge brother, Alberto, hugging my mom, since he didn’t know what else to do. In her room my mom was crying for some reason, but I didn’t know what she was crying about. I knew that my brother was mad because his face was really red like a tomato. I didn’t ask my mom or my brother anything because I didn’t want to get in between them.

So, I just went back to my small room. I felt really bad for her because I had never seen her cry like that before, but the next day my brother Alberto told me everything.

“Papas, I got to tell you something,” he said.

“Okay. What’s up?” I said.

“Our dad is not gonna be living with us anymore.”

When my brother told me that I did not believe him. I was really scared so I went to go ask my mom and she told me the same thing. I would not stop crying because I really loved my dad I thought. Me and my dad had a really good relationship. He would take us out to eat every Sunday, Sometimes go to the movies, or most of the time we would just stay home and watch T.V . I saw him as the head of the family and since I was only10, I didn’t know what was going on. I actually thought that my dad had left because of me and my siblings. He would get mad at us sometimes and scream at us. Me thinking that made me even more sad.

When I stopped crying, my mom said, “You are going to be okay?”

“Mom, but I don’t want my dad to leave us,” I said sadly.

I knew that they would argue a lot, but I never thought he would end up leaving. They would have little arguments a lot about money or food, it didn’t seem serious at all.

The next day we went to church, and Jocelyn (my sister) didn’t know yet because the day before she was at my aunt’s house. When my she found out she was really mad and sad. After church, my mom dropped me, brother, and sister off at my Aunt Marina’s big green house because my aunt said she wanted to go find my dad. My mom didn’t want us to know what she was gonna do so she told us that she was just going to buy us some food. In my head I was thinking “Why would’t she just take us with her?” I had no idea that they were gonna go look for my dad.

I found out that my mom, and aunt didn’t find him. My mom just picked us up, and took us home.

My dad and my mom didn’t talk for a long while after that night, but one day he called and said he was goint to go pick up his clothes at my house. He wanted to go pick up his clothes quickly and when we were not home. That day that he came, we didn’t go to school because my mom knew he was going to pick up his clothes and she wanted to get him mad and because she probably just wanted him to tell us something about what was going on. When he walked in he was quieter than a ghost he just got his clothes. Once my mom got home from work, she asked us if he talked to us and we said no. We didn’t see our dad for a long time after that. The last time we heard from him he was living with my Uncle Carlos in his big house for a long time.

I really didn’t know that my dad would ever leave my house and never come back, because my dad seemed really glad when he was with us. I still remember what he told me when I was with him and my mom.

“I will never, never leave you guys, You guys are my life,” he said.

When he left I kept hearing that sentence. I think my mom, suffered the most because my dad was everything to my mom. I tried to help my mom as much I could. My mom tried really hard to keep all of her pain inside, but most of the time she could not do it.

When she would cry loudly I would go up to her and ask, “Mom, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay I just have really big headache.”

Since I didn’t know what she was really crying about, I just said, “Okay.”

To my surprise, my dad came to eat dinner after like 6 months. My dad came around 6:30p.m. I was happy that he came to eat, because I had not seen him in a long time. After we ate, we were all sitting on my long brown couch, watching The Simpsons. It was good night until all of a sudden, my dad started yelling at my mom for not having a lot of food and money. I felt bad for my mom. I had never heard my dad yell like that before. I was really scared, so I just stayed quiet, but my brother didn’t.

“ Why don’t you guys ever have food in the house...” my dad said.

“Well, we don’t have a lot of money, and I have to pay the rent all by myself now because you stopped paying it,” my mom said.

My brother jumped in the middle of the conversation, because he didn’t like the way my dad was talking to my mom.

“Hey don’t talk to my mom like that, and don’t worry about what we have and don’t have! You don’t even live here anymore!”

“That doesn’t matter, the point is you can’t yell at my mom for something that is not her fault; Maybe we don’t have food because you never care to leave us money to go buy some. Your an a******!”

“You don’t even know what we are talking about, so just sit down and shut up!” my dad said angerily.

I really wanted to say something, but I couldn’t because I was scared of my dad, so I just stayed quiet. My dad left after that. My mom got really mad at my brother for telling my dad all of that.
“I can’t believe you, Alberto, why did you talk to your dad like that?”
“Well, didn’t you see the way he was talking to you? He was treating you like trash and he can’t do that. That doesn’t bother you?” Aberto replied.
My mom and brother kept on arguing so I just went up to my room. After that day my dad didn’t come around for a really long time. My sister was really mad, because even she wanted to tell my dad a lot of stuff that my brother told him but she was scared to tell him, so she just kept it all to herself. My sister would always cry for my dad, but she always cried in her room, all by herself, while her music was playing loud. She didn’t want anyone to know that she was crying because she would always talk so much trash about my dad, and that she hated him for what he did to us. Only she knew how she really felt, but she never showed it.
To be honest, I think my sister was really strong to not tell my dad anything, because she would always tell me that she wanted to tell him off and let all of her feelings out to him.
In spite of everything, I have talked to my family about me talking to my dad. They all tell me that I should tell him what he needs to hear. Personally, I don’t think I’m ready to talk to him. I think I’m not ready because I’m afraid that it will lead to something really bad, like me and my dad not talking anymore, and I don’t know what to tell him. I don’t want to talk to him until I know exactly what I want to say. That talk will come around someday, or maybe not. I just want to be ready.