I was raised on a farm in my younger years, and as everyone always says life is hard on the farm. Well to be honest it truly is. There is always something to do and someone to take care of. An animal that needs to be feed or cleaned or rescued from the brier patch. Some thing always to do. Always busy, busy, busy.

   There are four of us children. My brother is the oldest now59, then a sister 51, then me now 47, then my baby sister 45. My parents divorced when I was six years old and me and my two sisters lived with my Father. My brother had moved out of my Dads house at a very young age, due to his beatings, so it was just us three girls. Dad was a very strict man, and never showed love only hate. I don’t believe it was his fault because I don’t think his Mother raised him with love, his Dad had died when he was young and I do believe my Grandmother did the best she could as he did, but love they didn’t teach. They didn’t understand how to show it at all.

  My Mom on the other hand was full of love so I got that from her. I think all four of us did.  Her smile and gentleness was a gift, I must say, to all that was in the presence of her. All of us got that from her, so Dad was a little easier to try to understand and deal with. We all knew when Mom came to visit it was going to be a good day filled with smiles, hugs and kisses and I love you’s. We longed for those days and they didn’t come  far often enough for any of us.

  We were born, in my fathers words, to work, not to play not to have friends, not to sit around and do nothing, but to work. At an age as far back as I can remember that’s what was taught to us all by him. My first memory is a sad one, but true. We had a huge wood cook stove in our kitchen and I used to take my bottle and lay behind the stove and stay warm and sleep. One day my Dad came home from work and I got up to greet him. I was excited to see him, maybe cause I was just too little  to realize he didn’t seem to care if he saw me or not. I remember opening my arms for him to pick me up, and instead he grabbed the bottle from my mouth and said, you don’t need that thing anymore, he took it over opened the stove and inside it went. I was crushed inside and began to cry. My Mom yelled at him which did no good, and came to comfort me. This memory will always live inside of me. I just cant seem to let it go. A short time after that my parents divorced.