In 1962, I was born, the second son, in a family that now had grown to five, as I had three older sisters, and an older brother. In 1969, our Mother died from a Brain Tumor, I was 7 years old. My Father, my sisters and brothers, were grieving the loss of my mother but cared for me as best they could at the time. They each did their best, but they couldn’t replace my mother.

On March 19, 1971, I celebrated my 9th birthday and the very next day, my father died, unexpectedly. He had an aneurysm on his heart that burst while he was asleep in his bed. I can still remember hearing his death rattles. We were numb and at a loss as to how we were going to go on, where we would live. Here we were, totally alone in the world, with no certainty of our future and with the only security we had ever known, gone.

I could not understand why, it seemed as if God had abandoned me. For the longest time, I resented and hated God for it, what I had assumed, was His abandonment. Everybody else had let me down, why shouldn’t I think someone, I could not even see, be there for me? I wasn’t worth His time, I surmised.

I lived with a cousin for a time, but there were three of us kids still home, myself and two older sisters and they had split us up. Eventually, there was contact made with an Aunt and Uncle in Oklahoma that was willing to take all three of us kids in.

LITTLE DID WE KNOW THAT WE WERE WALKING INTO THE FIRES OF HELL?

Oklahoma wasn’t exactly, the home we had been promised!

My Uncle was an abusive drunk, which happened to be, a Sheriff’s Deputy. He was a mean one when he was drunk and if he wasn’t working, he was drunk! When I came home with mud on my pant legs from playing at school, he beat me across the back with his big buckle end of his belt.

We left there but we returned a time later. After few weeks, he again attacked, but this time he went after my sister that is three years older than me!! He pulled a large handful of hair from her scalp, and once again we left, only to return for round three.

My Uncle, being a Sheriff’s Deputy, kept several handguns in the house. My oldest sister knew how to use them and where they were hidden. She was his target and when he drew back to hit her, he froze. Hearing the double click of the hammer on a .38 Special being drawn back has that effect even on a drunk. She calmly told him to go ahead and hit her because she would be the last person he ever hit on