Daddys got a GUN

I never knew being available every two or three hours to feed a baby could result in serious sleep deprivation. Whew, this could be exhausting. I was a good little mommy. I sterilized bottles every morning and mixed formula afterwards. Filled and refridgerated them after the mandatory sterilization my mother had told me about. My mom had come over the first day we were home and gave lisa her first bath. This would later become a tradition in our family. The "grandma" always gave the new baby their first bath. So each morning after the bottles were made I would fill the kitchen sink with nice warm water and in she would go. Scrub a dub dub, baby girl is in a tub. Lisa loved to take a bath. She loved water and it was another great time of bonding for us. Still having no car, no phone and no neighbors meant that Lisa and I would spend a lot of quality time together. I had a television with rabbit ears and on a good day we got one clear channel and one fuzzy one. One a day that was not so good we got one fuzzy channel. But who needed television now? I had my own baby to play with.

I can't remember the exact date but I believe it was early September. It was a Saturday night and my hubby had borrowed one of his parents cars for the weekend so we could got to town to do some laundry. In the early evening of that Saturday he said he needed to ride over to a friends house to get something. I knew what he was going for (a bag of marijuana) and to get drunk but I still wanted to go with him. I always wanted to go with him. I loved him so much. I would go anywhere and do anything just to be with him. I must say I was shocked when he said we could ride with him. Here we go. Our first time out in public as a family. This felt like I had always imagined it would. I loved our little family. He had some money because he had just been paid the day before and I had that gut feeling that by the time we got home he probably wouldn't have much if any left. I was correct when I said he was going there to get drugs. What I didn't know was that there would be another purchase while we were there. His friend left the room momentarily and came back to the living room with a 22 pistol. He told my husband that he would sell it to him for $25.00. Of course my first thought was "why in the world would he need a gun?" And in a split second my next thought was "someone is going to get hurt real bad with that thing." After he purchased this weapon I was a nervous wreck. I could not get it out of my head that my situation with him was becoming more and more dangerous. Why is it that when your head tells you one thing (the smart thing) and your heart tells you another thing (a not so smart thing) you tend to listen to your heart. Another lesson better left unlearned.............."listening to your heart instead of your head." That was what I had done since we got married and it had proven to be a painful choice physically and mentally.

It was Friday the 21st of September when all hell started to break loose. After coming home from work he showered, ate dinner and left to go party with his friends. It was in the wee hours of Saturday morning that he returned. This time it took all the energy he had to make it to the bed and pass out. "Whew" I thought. That was a close one. I usually took a pretty good smacking around when he would come home in that condition. Around noon on Saturday he started to stir. You could tell by his face and his walk that he had an awful hangover. "Served him right" I thought to myself. He immediately demanded that I fix him something to eat so with Lisa on one hip I ventured the 5 feet over to the kitchen to cook something for him. The afternoon was tense. Hearing a pen drop would make his skin crawl. As the early evening rolled around again he geared up for another round of drinking and drugging. By 7pm he was gone again. The next 24 hours of my life would change who I was forever. I felt it coming. My instincts told me something real bad was about to happen. I packed Lisa up and walk a half a mile or so until I got to a pay phone. I called my mom and asked her if my younger sister come stay the night with me. I explained to her that my husband was gone and that I wanted to go to church with her the following day and I would love to have some company that night. She hesitated but finally agreed to bring my sister over. Maybe she had that weird feeling too that night, I'm not sure. They arrived at the house around 8:30 pm and my sister and I sat and talked while we played with Lisa on the floor. I spilled my guts to her that night. She was only twelve but I needed a friend and confidant and she seemed to be the best choice. At least I knew whatever I told her would be kept between the two of us. I told her about all the abuse I had been putting up with, physical and mental. She said everyone already knew that due to the numerous times they had seen me black and blue. But to please me she agreed agreed to keep my so-called secret. It was around midnight when we heard a car pull up in the driveway. Oh my God it's him and the friend that had given him the ride home. He was TRASHED! Drunk out of his mind and who knows what kind of drugs he had been doing but it was a distinctly different high that night. He didn't stay long as his friend waited for him outside. He had me fix him something to eat real quick and then he went into the bedroom. Oh no! Oh God no! Please don't let him do what I think he is going to do. I knew him like the back of my hand and it was only minutes before he emerged out of the bedroom with the gun he had purchased in hand. Oh God please let him leave again. Please keep us safe. I can say I had never wanted him to leave before but I sure did want him gone if he was going to play with that. He walked out of the bedroom and right out the front door never saying a word. Whew! We made it. He was gone again. Maybe we would get lucky and this would be one of those times when he stayed gone a long time. There we sat. The three of us. Me, 16 years old. My younger sister 12 and Lisa one week shy of being two months old. My sister and I began to talk about how frightened we were and what we should do. We had no way to leave and we had really had no where to go even if we did. So we sat there and waited. And waited. The clock ticked away the minutes and it seemed as if we counted every one. By 3 am I think we felt we were in the clear. Looked like he wouldn't be coming home so we decided to go to bed. Besides mom was going to be there at 9 am to pick us up to go to church with her. At 4:30 a.m. I heard a car pull up. Oh no............is he back already? I heard him stumble as he came through the front door. And I heard the car drive off. I looked at my sister and told her to stay in the bedroom and not to come out no matter what! I handed Lisa to her and I walked out of the bedroom and closed the door behind me. I sat on the couch and he sat in a chair about five feet away from me. It was one of those chairs that you could spin around in circles. He just stared at me for the longest time. He was wasted. He had a look in his eyes that I had never seen before. It appeared as if he wasn't even there. Like he was possessed or something. It was frightening! Then all of a sudden he reached down and pulled the gun out of his boot. Oh god! What do I do now. He pointed it at me and then spun around in his chair. He would pause as he came back around to me and then he would spin again. Each second seemed like an eternity. Thoughts were flying through my mind at 100 miles an hour. Is he going to kill me? What about my sister? What about Lisa? The couch I was sitting on was against the wall that had our bedroom on the other side. If he were to shoot the gun and miss me it could very well travel through the wall and potentially kill one or both of them. So believe it or not this was my next thought. I am sixteen years old. My sister is only twelve and Lisa an infant. I had lived longer than either of them and it was my fault that we were in this situation so if anyone was about to get shot it would have to be me. After about the fourth or fifth spin he came to a dead stop. He pointed the gun directly at me and said "you know I am going to kill you don't you?" And my reply was "yes". As I looked down the barrel of that gun, praying non stop for God to protect us I heard loud "BANG" as I watched the trigger being pulled. Everything after that was in slow slow motion. It was amazing. I watched that bullet come out of the end of the gun hurling towards me. In an effort to keep it from hitting me square in the middle of my chest I leaned over slightly hoping it would graze my shoulder and not go through the wall behind me. I will never forget what it felt like as the bullet hit my body. I was numb. From head to toe. At first I thought it had hit me right in the belly because I went numb from my neck to my legs. I stood up believing I only had minutes to live. My sister came running out of the bedroom screaming with Lisa in her arms. "What did you do she screamed? Are you crazy? You've shot her! Now she's going to die!" She was pushing him and screaming in his face and all I could think about was getting Lisa a diaper bag filled with bottles and diapers and getting them out of there as quickly as possible. I don't remember him stepping outside but my sister said he went out the back door and buried the gun in the backyard. I told her to run to the pay phone up the road and call 911. Afterwards she was to call my mom to come pick her and Lisa up. I figured by that time I would be dead or on my way to the hospital. I remember hearing people screaming at each other as I opened the front door and laid on the floor just inside the door. I never closed my eyes because I was afraid if I did I would never open them again and besides I had my sister telling me not to close my eyes.. Pictures of my entire life ran through my head as I lay there. And there was an unusual calm about me. A sense of peace I had never felt before. All of a sudden I could see him leaning over me. Yelling at me. I remember telling him " stop yelling at me. I have been yelled at, beat on and pushed around for the last year and if I am going to die I would like to do it in peace". It was about that time that I heard the rescue squad in my driveway. They came running in and started asking a million questions. "What happened? Who shot her? Where did the bullet enter? Was there an exit wound? I remember looking up at one of the EMT's and recognizing him from school. He recognized me too after I called him by name and tried to reassure me that everything was going to be okay. I wasn't so sure but if he had hope I guess I could try to hold on to the same. I don't recall the ride to the local hospital but I do remember what happened once I got there. What I was not aware of was that my sister had managed to get a hold of my mom and she had come by the house and picked up Lisa and my sister and had taken them back to her house. Afterward she headed directly to the hospital to see me. Thank God she got there when she did. You see, because I was only sixteen I was still considered a minor and someone had to sign medical paperwork before they could treat me. My husband would not sign anything and I never did ask him why. But when my mom arrived she signed what they wanted to make sure I was being taken care of. One of the moments I recall was when one of the Drs. came in to see me. I only remember asking him one thing. "Am I going to die" I asked. He looked me straight in the face and said "I don't know. We're doing the best we can". Well that wasn't good news so I knew the fight for my life was on! GUNS are dangerous!!!! Another lesson better left unlearned.