I began to panic, telling myself to breathe deeply as I was running up the fire-engine red carpeted staircase. It reminded me of spilled blood cascading down. I was in my suburban home, which was not a sanctuary. It was spring, but the house was chilly with air conditioning. The stinging thrashing of the buckle end of my father's belt lashed my back. With each strike my wounded spirit and sixteen year old body was going to be sore that night. This insane part of my father was his anger. A few steps away from the top of the stairs my mind tried to comfort me. Suddenly I thought of the colorful pastel Easter tulips that were lining my home's front walkway. So benign, so innocent they were. My psyche distracted itself again. The year before I was standing with my father in an overflowing Easter Sunday Mass at St. Elizabeth's Catholic Church on Long Island. We stood quietly, listening to the priest greeting everyone on that warm fragrant holiday morning. Receiving Communion felt so sacred as I glanced around on my way back to the standing area. So many young families dressed in their Easter outfits. Then, I reached the top of the bloody stairs, and he stopped beating my striped back. He apologized, and walked back down to the first floor. This man, this monster, was surely one of the most screwed up people in the teeming landscape of humanity. I'm sixty-five now, and I still remember that day. I still loved him after that. He didn't love me. All these years later, I realized, it was so sad to be him. I drank too much for a few years, but with the love of God, overcame it. My psychological scars outlasted my welts, bumps, and bruises. My dear late husband had been an abused child too. Yet, when I start to feel sadness, I can, in my dreams, still see the pastel Easter tulips rising from a gentle early April snow. They represent survival and the cherish of God to me. To His only Son, who endured far worse than I did, that first Good Friday. ~