Screaming and crying and trying to wiggle free, but he had a strong grip around my belly holding me in a tight football grasp. He was in the road next to his car which was parked in front of our home. He screamed at my mother who stood in the door well, as tears streamed down her face. I looked quickly at her and could see terror in her eyes as her hands grabbed at her hair. She knew she couldn’t come after me. If she had he may strike her right in our front yard, or even worse he may hurt me. So she stood there screaming as he flew open the back door of his old Chevy and threw the black trash bag inside.
Moments before I was playing in my room and could hear them fighting, but they yelled and screamed and threw things whenever he was home, so I became used to it. I only felt the fear when I heard his steps pounding on the stairwell and I crawled fast to an area of the room away from the door, hoping he wouldn’t see me. The rest happened so quick. He plowed through my bedroom door holding a black garbage bag. He looked at me with empty eyes and said nothing as he pulled every drawer of my dresser completely out and dumped it into the black bag throwing the drawer after he finished. My mother seemed delayed but eventually came running up the steps. Once she reached my door well she shrieked in horror “What are you doing…STOP…please stop you’re scaring her.” Her words were words of panic and fear. My father was a very strong man and at that time a NY police officer who had become comfortable always having his gun on him. I quietly kept backing up, not crying just confused and frightened.
As he finished loading his black bag he turned to my mother and screamed “You will never see her again!” He walked over to me and quickly grabbed me into a football type hold. I couldn’t breath and that could have been from fear or from his strength as he held me tight around my belly. Holding me in one hand and the black trash bag in the other he went straight past my mother down the stairs and through the front door. His car was parked in front of the house by the curb and not in the driveway. Just before he was about to throw me into the back seat of the car, I heard my mother scream so loud , “Please ask her where she wants to be, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE look at her!!!!” He held me in front of him with two hands and I could tell he actually saw me and I quivered as I cried out “Mommy, Mommy!” He dropped me in the road and jumped into the driver’s seat and speed off.
He was full of rage and probably alcohol and maybe drugs. My father died in his early 50’s of a brain aneurysm after a lifetime of drug and alcohol abuse. He was kicked off the NYPD only a few years after this time.
I was only 5 years old when this happened and I remember the moment as clear as if it was yesterday. Funny the things we remember and the things we forget. I remind myself of this as I choose my words for disciplining my own children.
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