My Very First Memories. How They Shaped My Vision of Motherhood and Fatherhood

My very first memory is a wonderfully, vivid scene involving my mom, who was lying on her bed upstairs, pregnant with my brother. My aunt was sitting beside her bed, and my aunt’s newborn baby lying next to my mom. At that moment, I believed the baby was my new brother. I asked my mom if that was her new baby and she said no, and that it was my aunt's baby. I left the room, then went back down the stairs crying because I

wanted the baby to be my new baby brother.

The next earliest memory was of my mother again. This time she was lying on the same bed, and this time my new baby brother was lying beside her. He was about 1 month old. But this next memory shook me to the core. This time my dad was on top of her punching her in the face and ripping the hair out of her head. It was a terrifying scene. I could hear the punches and also hear the hair being ripped from her scalp. I was screaming and crying. My new baby brother was lying quietly beside her because he did not know what was going on. So, I began hitting him while I was screaming and crying because I wanted him to cry with me. The two first memories were the first of my mother and the first memory of my father. Those two memories shaped my vision of a wonderful and suffering mother, and a terrifying father trying to destroy who she was.

When my mother was near 80 years old, I talked to her about those 2 memories I had of her, and she said she remembered. I felt so badly for her but she did not make any discussion of them. However, I knew she prayed ALL THE TIME and that is what brought her and our family through a life of abuse by my father. The first memory of my father was a horrific memory, and I had to live with a father that constantly beat our mother. I knew as a young child that he was not doing what God wanted him to do and not being the man, husband and father that God wanted him to be. So, I wanted to be the exact opposite of him, to be what God wanted men, husbands and fathers to be. God's Alpha Male.