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MY FATHER BEAT US and I ate! by Kerry Little My father's temper flared without warning. He could be sitting watching TV or reading Reader's Digest and suddenly something would bother him. He'd jump up and come running after us kids. I was the oldest and biggest so I was easy to catch while my younger brother and sister hid out in the basement or their rooms. How can you feel your parent loves you when he pulls you around the room by your pony tail and tells you how stupid you are? I don't know which was worse, his pounding fists or his ugly words which tore holes into my soul. And yet despite these incidents, I wanted my father to love me. I wanted to love him. My anger towards him soon dropped away. I blamed myself. If I were a better girl he wouldn't get so angry with me. It seemed nothing I did could please my parents. One time it was washing the floor that started him off. Mom was at work. She called and told me to wash the dining room floor. I was 12 at the time. I had seen my mother and nana wash floors and I thought I knew how they did. So I took bucket after bucket of water and tossed it on the floor. Soon the water was up to my toes. I mopped and mopped, thinking I'd get the floors really cleaning. It seemd no matter how much I mopped I couldn't get up all that water. When my Nana came over she screamed at me and took the mop and tried to fix the mess I made. She was still at it when my mother came home. I knew I wouldn't get away easily with this mistake. Sure enough, as soon as my father walked through the door from work, my mother told him of my latest stupid act. I tried to block out the words he shouted at me. I fought back the tears. Slap, slap, slap. His hands hurt me. He squeezed my arm so hard he left finger marks. When it was over I was sent to my room without dinner for being such a trouble maker. I don't know how I connected eating with love, maybe it was the times I was sent to bed without supper. I do remember sitting in the darkened movie theater with my brother and sister. To the left was a lighted candy stand. A woman went up to it and from the way she acted with the older man who ran the stand I felt they were married. He let her pick out a bunch of candy but didn't charge her any money. I thought, now that is love. You'd give the one you love anything she wanted to eat. I know that was the start of my over eating which haunted me through childhood and adulthood. Sometimes I'd lose weight and look really good but that never lasted more than a year and then I'd balloon up again. I really enjoyed eating food, but not things like meat and vegetables. For me it was cake, candy, chips. I always felt happy when I had a bag of popcorn and a candy bar in the movie. At home, it was potato chips and my mother's chocolate cream pie. She always made two kinds of pie. lemon meringue and chocolate cream. I hated lemon meringue so I left that alone. My father ate that and enjoyed it. One night I finished off the chocolate cream. My mother told my father and started in on me warning me I'd be fat if I didn't stop. My answer was puny, "But I like it." Continue to part 2 ofMy Father Beat Us |