People love to talk. People REALLY love to talk about things they barely know about. I remember sitting on my momma's lap as the beating on the door got louder. The sound of my dads fist on the glass sent chills down my body. I could hear his slurred voice yelling at us to let him in. "It's not safe, okay? Do not let him in Brooke." I just nodded as the tears left my face raw. She ran to lock the back door and I watched her footprints disappear. Not a second later the door shattered beneath my daddy's hand and shards of glass ran across me, my sister, and the entire living room. Time seemed to stop and I don't know what scared me more, the fear in momma's eyes or the drunken anger in daddy's. This is the very first memory I have of my father. I was five years old.

I have many more memories like this. Daddy would take our grocery money to buy alcohol. I remember when he would sit outside and drink until his eyes were red and his words were angry. If we were lucky that day, he would fall asleep and we could drag him inside to sleep. Sometimes he would leave and wouldn't come home for days. He would drink and drive and momma would take his keys but he would just twist her arm until he got them anyway. When he got a breathalyzer in his truck for drunk driving, he would make me and Krista go outside and breathe in it for him. We always told him no but he would just get so..so angry. I didn't like it when he was angry. When momma tried to take us and leave he would beg her to stay. He would always say that he would stop drinking and that he would be better, but he never did.

I was eight and Krista was ten when we moved into an apartment. My mom was in nursing school and worked full time. To this day I don't know how she did it. People started blaming my momma. Some of our family said that it was her fault that daddy started drinking. One of his aunts looked me right in the eye when I was 11 years old and told me that we were cowards for leaving. She protested that we should have stayed and "helped". Momma told me not to argue with them, she said that one day daddy would mess his own name up and our words wouldn't hurt or help that. I started thinking about all the things my mom had done to help my dad with his drinking problem. Rehab, medicine, therapy, counseling, etc, the list continues. Still many people blamed her. They stained her name with the darkest ink they could find. We often heard the whispers. They ALWAYS got back to us and most of the time, I wish they hadn't. My mom would cry big, sad tears. She tried to be strong for me and Krista but we would often see her crack under the hateful words, mostly when she thought we weren't looking. They were all so quick to talk but made no effort to help her or even my dad. They wanted so badly to blame anyone for my dad's addiction except my dad and so they did. They blamed her for all of it.

No one could ever truly grasp what we went through. "But you know he loves you guys, Brooke" Yeah...just not enough. We watched our dad pick up a basketball goal and throw it at our mom. We watched him pass out while cooking and not wake up to the fire. We witnessed him kick in the doors to our room because he didn't like the fact that we were hiding. We watched him fall down a hill and bust his head open and I watched as my sister bawled because he refused to go to the hospital. I can't count the nights that we called all of the hospitals and jails in the area because it was 3 a.m. and he still hadn't come home. One night in the pouring rain I went out and searched almost all of our 15 acres to find him laying in the field bleeding, lips purple, freezing, and unconscious. I drug him inside and when mom finally raised his temp he woke up yelling at her as if she didn't just save his life. The same people who blamed my mom, called her weak. She was not the weak one, my dad was. He let us go to bed every night not knowing where he was or when he was coming home. One night I came home to my dad laying in the floor screaming, "Brooke is on fire!! She's burning! My baby is on fire!!" I had nightmares for weeks. They still blamed my mom. People took up for my dad like he saved the world but he couldn't even save himself. My dad broke himself. He broke all of us. For the life of me, I still can't understand why he would choose alcohol over his own family. It broke my heart and made me feel worthless and unloved.

My mom has been fighting her whole life and she deserves the world. I asked her once why everyone had such horrible things to say about her when dad was "the bad guy". She just said that they didn't understand and hopefully they would never have to. People just like to talk and for some reason they just LOVE to talk about things they know nothing about. Gossip is hurtful and it does not discriminate. When our dad was out all night drinking, it was our mom who was there while I cried myself to sleep and every day when our dad chose seemingly everything over me and Krista, our mom chose us. What people say about you does NOT define who you are. Only you can define who you are. My momma did everything in her power to keep us safe and that's exactly what she did. She over came every single obstacle that life could throw at her. Kids, school, work, bills, car troubles, all by herself and they STILL slandered her name. She now stands taller than she ever has. So, let people talk. Let them tell the world about something they know nothing about. At least now they can talk about something they know a little more about...my daddy issues.