Surviving Abuse Through Unexpected Love at Christmas

Merry Christmas, everyone!

My wife and I use this blog mainly to promote our books and the books of our colleagues at Evernight Publishing, but we also like to talk about love, too, and that's just what I want to do today.

Specifically, I want to tell you just how wonderful my wife's love is.

I would first like to say that I've learned to get past my pride and deal with what happened to me as a child--and for this, I give my wife most humble thanks. She got me to the place where I can talk about it.

I grew up in a horribly broken home and was abused by a monstrous step-father. This is common in America, and I was simply another casualty of divorce. My mother was a registered nurse and worked nights (as well as two other jobs!), so I would spend my nights terrorized by my step-father. Hearing her car keys jingle as she left the house meant that my beatings were only minutes away. My sisters and I would be whipped, punched, kicked, and generally beaten for no reason, while the step-father's kids got to sleep comfortably in their beds. Sometimes we were made to clean the house or stand in corners until we shit our pants. Dishes wouldn't be done for days, and then we'd have to go into the kitchen and stick our hands in maggot-infested water and do the best we could with what we had. We lived with nightly injustice.

It was a terrible childhood full of every possible degradation you can imagine.

We rarely got good things, but one Christmas I got a Transformer toy, a fighter jet that turned into a robot. I loved it. I was so happy. I never got anything nice, but I'd gotten just what I wanted--for once. My step-father glared at me, his threatening eyes promising me a severe beating later. How dare I have fun on Christmas day? My mother was there, so he couldn't do anything then. And the longer he had to wait to administer punishment, the worse it was, as if it were somehow my fault for the delay.

But what could I do? I was just a boy, so I played with my little Transformer toy with all my heart. An hour after opening my treasured present, I tripped on the stair while pretending the jet was streaking across the sky. The toy slipped from my hand, hit the floor, and broke.

I cried so hard, and my mother tried to comfort me. But my step-father despised my sadness and silently promised me a nice, long session later for causing a scene. I couldn't stop crying; I'd broken the one good thing I'd gotten since I-didn't-know-when, and I was sure to never get one again.

We finally got out of that monster's lair and moved away. Many years later--after high-school and college apart from that nightmare--I married my wife, and after many years of marriage, I trusted her enough to tell her about my childhood. Everything. And one of the stories I told her was of the Transformer toy. She cried, and I was shocked to see another human being sympathize with my sufferings. I'd rarely seen any genuine feelings from anyone growing up. Except fear.

I'd forgotten all about that toy, but this Christmas, I opened my present, and guess what it was?

That's right! My lovely, darling, wonderful, loving, peerless, matchless, good, beautiful, thoughtful, selfless wife has replaced that toy I'd broken so long ago.

And with this gift, she has mended my broken heart.

I love you, Mrs. A.D.! You are my ... everything. Thank you for teaching me about love!