How I Became The Foster Care System - 1182 Words

I was six years old when I entered the foster care system. Perhaps entered is too soft of a term. Makes it sound peaceful, which for the most part it wasn t. It s not something I want to look back on and remember for the rest of my life, but something that significant left an imprint in my memory. To be more precise, it s branded there. I may not remember every moment I had with my biological parents, but I know my dad was always on a short fuse, and one day, he blew up. I actually find it coincidental now how I never liked him to begin with. Even when I was that age, I never let him carry me on his shoulders or toss me in the air like any normal and loving dad would do. Then again, I guess we didn t have a normal†¦show more content†¦Especially on that day, he was dad s shadow. One second I remember looking up at my dad and seeing him laughing. Then I looked down. Then back up. And dad suddenly slapped Gavin across the face. I only stared as my brother fell to the floor, his hand over his cheek. He wasn t crying, which was probably the only reason I stayed calm. When my mom ran to my dad and pulled on his arm to get him away from Gavin, he pushed her against the wall and screamed what sounded to me like bad words. When I ran between them saying, Mommy, daddy, don t fight, dad picked me up and threw me onto Gavin, who d just gotten off the ground from his first strike. Dad kept yelling at us. I didn t know why, and it scared all of us. I knew my mom was scared because she crawled across the floor behind dad, to the coffee table just feet from her, and swiped the little silver bottle she always carried around with her. After she scrambled back to her corner and took a drink from it (the bottle, which I later learned was called a flask) she looked to Gavin and me with big, sorrowful eyes. She couldn t stand up to dad at that point even if she wanted to. The pain began to set in from my fall, so like any normal six year old I started to cry. That s whe n my brother snapped into action and picked me up off the ground, immediately fleeing the scene...right in the middle of dad s tantrum. I remember feeling him catch Gavin s shirt collar and