Part 1

My dad was a PRCA bull rider and my mom was a school teacher.

When I was around five years old, they purchased about two acres in Silver Lake and started a restaurant.

I don't remember all the details.

Years later as I talked with people, I was amazed how people could remember things as early as three years old. They could remember places they had been, the feelings they had, down to little details.

I realized that I had no recollection of anything that happened before nine years old.

There were pictures of me in a photo album that had been put together for me, so I had those memories, but they were not my “memories”. I did not remember the details of any of those pictures.

When I was 20, I volunteered for a Christian Organization called Mercy Ships who had ships that brought medical relief to third world countries. I worked at the land base in Lindale, Texas.

God used that time to minister to me and I remember asking God to help me remember.

I remembered being a little girl and seeing my dad choking my mom to “death”. He didn't kill her, but he sure was trying. For a little girl, I thought he was going to. I could see them standing right at the door, I was standing next to a wall, bawling my eyes out, wanting my daddy to stop. I had to be around three or four years old.

I remember being in my mom's classroom, when she was a school teacher. I can still see her behind the teachers desk. I am not sure why I was there, but I know she had a black eye. I know all the kids in her class saw this.

I remember having to be at a babysitter's and Mom had to drive over to Grants Pass to get Dad out of jail. He had gone to a rodeo over there, got in a fight, and Mom had to go bail him out.

After we opened the restaurant, I remember my aunt bringing me home. Walking through the front door I did not see my mom. Instead my dad was there.

I was devastated. Fear gripped my stomach and did flip flops. I am not sure if I asked my dad or my dad just told me. I never talked much. I never talked to anyone or looked them in the eye.

Walking into that building that night, my dad told me that my mom had gotten on a bus to visit his parents in Salem. I knew it wasn't true. I knew he was lying to me. I ran to the trailer house that we lived in behind the restaurant, crying. How could my mother leave me? How could she go without me? I ran in to the dark house and there my mother sat, in the dark, with a black eye. Relief and the horror that gripped me at that moment.

I never wanted leave again. I would, but fear that my mother could be killed while I wasn't there was always a reality to me. As a little girl, I had a strong sense of being my mother's protector.

I remember we went to a baseball game in La Pine that weekend. My dad was playing on a softball team there. He parked the red, one-ton truck we had behind the house for mom to get in and she stayed hidden till we got out of town. After all, she was suppose to be in Salem not hiding in the house with a black eye.

I remember my mother's failed attempt at trying to call the cops.

I remember my dad coming in the house and getting a gun.

He held them off at gun point till they finally left.

I remember looking out the door into the dark night, seeing the cops out by the highway. My dad told me to get down next to the fridge that was right there next to the door. I remember squatting there. I don't remember the words that were exchanged, but finally they left.

No charges were pressed. Nothing.

My mother was pregnant with my brother when I was eight. I don't remember dates very well, but I remember events that happened around time periods.

I know the abuse was escalating. It was out of control.

Most of it happened at night in the restaurant while I was in the house.

My brother was born that December.

I know my mom had gone into labor early.

My aunt must have been called to come get me when my mom went into labor. I know it was dark. I was in the back of my aunt's car. I remember my dad asking me if I wanted to stay. I just remember shaking my head no and trying to disappear into the back seat and hide in the darkness.

I remember after my brother was born, my mom was nursing him, but her eyes were so empty. There was no life, no joy, nothing. Something that should be so wonderful was so scarred with abuse and fear.

We tried leaving that spring with the help of a pastor's wife. I remember her walking with us out the door of our trailer. My dad was standing there. I remember him snarling at me that I “had become one of them”, as I was a Christian. He could see that in me.

My dad hated God. God was not to be mentioned or talked about in our house. We were not allowed to go to church, have Bibles (although we did, which we kept hidden), or listen to Christian music when he was around.

I remember my dad burning each one of my mom's books, every single one. He threw each one in the fire, mocking my mom over each book, waving it under her nose and then throwing it into the fire. “Your God is nothing.”

I know we had gone over to a neighbor's house just across the street.

I am not real sure of the details, but I know we had forgotten my brother's bottle.

I am pretty sure I was sent back to get it and I am pretty sure my dad stopped me.

I know that we did not get away that time. It wouldn't be till later that spring that we would leave again.