September 19th, 2009 is the day that changed my life forever and all my trust and respect for any man was lost forever especially my father. September 19th 2009 was the day I closed myself off from the world, stopped talking to people, and doing the things I know and love. September 19th was the day my family fell apart, the day I lost what really mattered to me, something that I will never get back. September 19th was also the day I lost my childhood for good.

My day started out just like every other day, I woke up at 8 am, so I could see my mother before she left for work. My mother worked at a small, local racetrack in Stewart, Ohio where she managed all transactions of money between the racers, tickets, and concessions. I loved going to the races with my mother, but she didn’t like me being there because it wasn’t the best place for a little girl to be, because it was dirty, involved lots of beer, and just had a lot of rough looking people there, which I now understand was really not a good example for any young child growing up.

On September 19th I was pestering my mother as she did her hair, like I always did about going to the races with her, she as always said no but I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. I just kept pestering her and pestering her about going but she still said no, so I did what any young child would do and started crying hoping my mother would give in and let me go but she wouldn’t budge. All I wanted to do was go with her to the races because I loved my mommy and I wanted to be just like her.My crying at that point got my dad to come in to see what was going on so I told him that mommy wasn’t letting me go with her, and that she was being mean, so my dad started trying to get her to either stay home (which wasn’t an option) or take me with her….That is where it all started.

Since my mother kept refusing to take me or stay home my dad started yelling at my mother about how she cares about her job more than she cares about my family. If there was one thing my mother didn’t like, it was being accused of something. My mother wasn’t ne to cuss or fight about anything, but when it came to being accused of something, it just made her so mad that she would lose her temper and just start going off on whoever was around. My father’s statement set my mother over the edge at that moment, she started cursing and accusing him of being a terrible father, neither of those acquisitions were true.

My mother was a good mother, and my father was a good father. My brother and I were so close to our mother, because she had been a stay at home mom for the past 8 years, and this was the first real job she has had since she had given birth to the both of us. Most of our life we never really had a father that was there all the time, and would go places and do things with us, he was just a dad who worked all day, came home at about 5pm every night, eat dinner with us, clean up and go straight to bed. Our father was always just there, he never taught us how to ride a bike, or fish, or sports or anything a father usually teaches his kids.

As my mother and Father were fighting, I laid down in their bed since the bathroom and bedroom were both connected, and just listened to them fighting, saying terrible, hurtful things to each other like it was nothing. It was now about 10am and my mother and father were still arguing, and fighting. I remember the smell of hairspray, and burnt breakfast that filled the house, the burning smell of bacon and pancakes. I got up from my parents bed and went into the kitchen to turn off the bacon and pancakes so the house wouldn’t burn down, and then I proceeded to go back to my parent’s room, and that’s when it happened, that is when everything started to fall apart.

My mother slapped my father across the face. My father was fairly laid back and never got physical, but at this moment in time I didn’t know who either of my parents were at that point because at that moment in time they weren’t my parents, they were complete strangers to me. My parents started going back and forth, shoving, smacking, punching, it was a full on fight. During this whole fight all I could do was scream, I kept screaming telling them to stop! Stop! STOP! but it never worked they kept fighting. My dad gave a final shove and that’s when I heard it, which is when I heard the loud noise that almost sounded like something exploded, or like a glass window breaking.

My mother was shoved into the television, which knocked her on the ground and knocked the television on top of her. My mom hit the television so hard, that it shattered into a million teeny, tiny pieces when it fell on her. I noticed that mommy wasn’t moving, why wasn’t mommy moving? Why wasn’t mommy speaking? Why wasn’t mommy doing anything? As my mother was laying there my father proceeded to yell at her and kick her…I still couldn’t understand why mommy was just lying there, not moving or making a sound.

At that moment I started screaming, screaming like I have never screamed before, and ran to the phone and called my grandma crying begging her to come help telling her “daddy’s hitting mommy”, “Daddy is hurting mommy and she won’t move” “Help me grandma mom won’t move and daddy won’t stop” my grandmother lived about 45 minutes away, the closest neighbor was over a mile away, I thought my mom was a goner. I was so scared, scared for mommy, scared of daddy, and just worried about what was going on because I couldn’t understand why daddy was hurting mommy, and why mommy had been so mean to daddy, why they were yelling, why so much fighting over me going to work with mommy.

My brother had just came in from playing outside when he heard me crying and our father yelling, I told him “we have to help mommy!, we have to help mommy!” so we grabbed what was closest to us which was the mop and broom and ran towards our father and started hitting him as hard as we could with the mop and broom. After several hits he finally stopped and started yelling at us and left the room to go find the belt that they would punish us with.

While our dad was trying to find the belt, we did our best to move the television and try to help our mom, she was still alive but she was bleeding and couldn’t move her leg. Since the bathroom connected to more than one room we locked the door that entered our parents’ room and helped our mother toward the other door that led to the side of the house toward the porch. We almost made it outside when my dad walked in and started yelling again, then my mom said the best she could “ I’m leaving and taking the kids with me” this is when my dad changed his attitude.

At that point my dad started crying saying he’s sorry and that he didn’t mean to, and that she did it to, but my mom kept on moving. She eventually made it to the car and yelled for us to come get in the car. My mom went ahead and went to work and had me call my grandma and let her know where we were going and to have her meet us there. It took about 20 minutes for our grandma to finally meet us at my mom’s work. My grandma kept trying to get my mom to go to the hospital to get checked out my mom kept refusing, she didn’t want to lose her job so she decided she would stay no matter what.

My grandma took me and my brother back to her house so that our mom could work and we could calm down, but it didn’t help, I never really calmed down after that. That one event of my father and mother abusing each other stuck with me, and made it so I couldn’t feel right or like myself near anyone. My brother, mother, and I went to live with my mom’s friend Joselyn for a while because my grandma’s house was just too small for all of us. My mom’s friend Joselyn had two kids of her own, one daughter my age named tori, and a son named Michael that was 7.

We stayed with my mom’s friend Joselyn for about 2 months, and every night my father would come, and beat on the windows and doors trying to get us to let him in, and to come home. My dad started calling my mom’s work, following her and even started threatening her to come back home. My mom eventually gave in and we all went back home and it didn’t work out like it should have.

My mom had to start lying about where she was going because my dad kept her on a tight leash. One night my mom, grandpa, and I all went to a race over in West Virginia, but told my dad we were going to a fair. My dad eventually showed up at the fair because he had tracked my mom’s phone. When my father showed up he was so furious and it scared the living crap out of me. My mother and I had to lock ourselves in a bathroom to get away.
After my dad kept on yelling my mother eventually opened the door and came out and that’s when my father said what would haunt me for the rest of my life…”I should of finished you off when I had the chance, next time you won’t get up you will be lying face down in a ditch somewhere. After my father said that I started having nightmares, which reoccurred every night for about 2 years.

My family put me through therapy, tried medication ,and just about everything to try to get the nightmares to go away, but they didn’t…to this day I still don’t trust my father, or men in general. I don’t like to speak to people I am not already close to, I don’t like to be left alone, I don’t like to do anything anymore because that one memory will stay with me forever. I hope that one day I will be able to get past this memory and start living life, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon. The anniversary of what happened is almost here and it is already starting to bother me. I’m starting to think more and more about what happened, worrying about the dreams, the memory, and just all that has happened.