Pastors

Dad never spoke much about his growing up years, not to mom, not to us kids. But we've learned enough about those years to know that they set him on the path to a life of abuse and failure.

It wasn't just that he and his two younger sisters grew up in a tiny two-bedroom home or that their Dad worked in a pottery factory making toilets and sinks. Rather, it was that Dad felt like he could never please his parents. He was the oldest and only son, yet they poured what time and money they had into his sisters. The girls had a bedroom, he had a roll away bed in the dining area just off of the front room; they had dance lessons and beautiful dance costumes for recitals, he had boy scouts at school. I eventually discovered the physical, mental, and emotional abuse he endured, doused with lots of ridicule.

I didn't know my paternal grandparents well. My images of them come from a collection of Christmas Eves that, sadly, don't equal even a couple of days' worth of time. ...

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