Marjatta – for women

When I was a little child, I remember quite clearly that my father was verbally abusive to myself and my younger brother. He was equally abusive to my mom, but he never laid a hand on any of us (aside from a few strappings with the belt to us kids and a few ongoing threats).

While my mother would still threaten, “Wait until your father gets home!” I knew she still cringed at what revealing our indiscretions to my father might have meant for me and my younger sibling.  My father’s leather belt never hung too far out of sight as a solemn reminder of the severe penalty of our ill behavior.

I think I may have gotten the strap only once, thank goodness, but not this time.  My brother, well, when he was a very tiny boy, I remember that he had an asthma attack one night and my father thought that it was just an excuse for not wanting to go to bed.  My father was in my brother’s room yelling and yelling and yelling, and my brother kept wheezing and panicking more.

I remember rushing into my brother’s room after hearing the awful commotion. I can’t believe the amount of adrenalin that rushed through me that night. I truly didn’t care what would happen to me. All I cared about was protecting my little brother. I held my 9-year-old arms up in the air and screamed at the top of my lungs for my father to stop.  He seemed startled but he stopped. He never strapped either of us again. I still tremble from that night and from my father’s fury, but at least I know in my heart of hearts that I had stopped the verbal AND physical abuse of my brother and perhaps had even given my father a message that taking out his own frustrations on us wasn’t right.

My father is dead now, but I think we made peace before he died. I hope so. I know that it took a lot longer for my mother, if at all.