Sins of the father....

I would like to believe that my father did love me. I choose to think so, even though I have no evidence of this love. I would like to believe that there was a time when my innocence was intact, but I cannot remember that time. I do not believe that a child has the ability to give their innocence away, only an adult can make that choice. A child’s innocence must be taken. Was mine taken out of love, fear or ignorance?
When I was about four, my family lived on a farm in Cash Valley, Utah. We didn't live there long, as with most places, maybe a few months. This is the place of my first memories as a child. The house, I remember was old and very large, but most things are when you are small. My mother had a large garden behind the house and a small flower garden in the front. I remember digging in the dirt with a spoon, while my mother planted flowers, singing Little Purple Pansies. I remember playing marbles in the family room with my older brothers and chasing them through the cow pasture until the mud became too deep for my little legs to keep up. I remember sliding down the stairs on blankets with my younger sisters and my mother yelling at us to stop before someone got hurt. I remember my older sister standing in her bedroom with the sun streaming through the windows, shinning around her like a halo and thinking, there could be no other creature quite as beautiful. I can also remember watching my father beat her until she fell to the floor because she pierced her ears when she was eighteen without his permission.
One of my favorite things to do was to play in the small barn where we kept chickens and rabbits. I remember the day the baby rabbits were finally old enough to be away from their mother, the favorite of my brother and me. My brother, older by 3 years, and I had gone into the barn to play with the baby rabbits that day. I remember the feel of their silky fur as I cupped one in my hand and rubbed it against my cheek. My father came into the barn while we were there, holding a hammer and a very large nail. I don't remember feeling frightened when he came over to the rabbit cages. He opened the door on the mother rabbit’s cage and pulled her out and tucked her under his arm. He looked at my brother and me and told us to put the baby rabbits away and shut the cage; he had something he wanted to show us. We did as we were told, it wasn't like any of us to ever back talk or be disobedient, and followed my father to the other side of the barn. He told us that he thought we needed to understand the way of life and the purpose of the creatures God had left man as masters over. He then proceeded to nail our rabbit to the wall and gut it. I don't remember screaming. I don't remember breathing. The only things I remember were the touch of my brothers hand in mine, whether he grabbed my hand or I his I don't know, and the wet stickiness of the tears that slid down my frozen face. I couldn't move, I wanted to run, but I couldn't turn away, my whole body was numb and then slowly, gratefully so was my consciousness. That night my father placed a plate of chicken fried rabbit in front of me and told me to eat. I shook my head. He told me that I would get nothing else and that I would sit there until I ate it. I shook my head again. I have never eaten rabbit.

I love my father. I think he needed to be loved, even more than I did. What sins had he committed or what ones had been committed on him, to make him as he was?