A Peaceful Rest

After looking at the above picture of himself on his First Holy Communion day, my father said, with tears streaming down his face...“If I get to see my mother, I am going to ask her how she could beat that little boy so badly.”

I will never forget that conversation...we were seated at the kitchen table of the home he proudly raised us in and unknown to us at the time, he would be passing away just weeks later.

At 65 years of age, 10-feet-tall-and-bulletproof in my eyes, he could still be brought to tears from the abuse that was inflicted on him as a child.

And he suffered the worst kind of abuse....abuse from those that were to be his protectors.

His parents - a mother that carried out the beatings and a father that only once stepped in and said "Gert, that's enough!"

For you, Pops, I pray you have had some closure so you can rest in peace.

that pain needed to cease