Kim Sykes

He'd be yelling, the wind's really blowing hard and there's lots of rain.

By the time

Betsy had come and gone.

I'd fallen asleep, thank God.

We walked out the next morning and the first thing I thought was that it looked like a war, except minus the bodies.

Trees had been snapped in half and cars turned over and dragged down the street.

On TV we watched families and kids who were stranded on top of their houses because the water had risen so high.

But we were safe.

just like I was safe from my father's brutality.

I never saw the worst of my father's violence.

I saw a man who was kind to me and affectionate.

I saw a man who would sit me on his knee and say, all you want for Christmas is your two front teeth.

A man who would take me with him to take my mother to work.

and my mother in her clean white uniform would get out of the truck to go to the house that she had to clean and she'd walk towards the door and the door would open and these two little white kids would run out and their arms stretched running to her and they'd grab her around her knees and she'd bend down and grab them and oh god the pain and jealousy and hatred i felt for those two kids and my mother god

and my father's hand resting on my shoulder and on my knee.

And he knew how I felt.

Every day I struggle with the memory of those kindnesses and the history of his abuse.

I can't hate him, but I've given up liking him.

My father planted trees and flowers for the city of New Orleans on city-owned land.

He planted all the trees in the projects.