Dayton Youth Radio is a safe place for high school students to share stories about their lives. As parents we ask teenagers to do what we say but oftentimes they do what they see us do, and today we have a story about a teenager's memory of how his parents marraige survived a bad night and a terrible argument.
My name is Mark Gullette. I go to a STEM school named Thurgood Marshall. I love my mother and my father, and honestly it's pretty good. But I always feel conflicted about it when I'm talking. I say conflicted because I know that my friends or people that I don't know could have the chance of not having both of their parents at all. I mean I don't want to seem like that guy is like, yeah I got both of my parents.
Personally I'd say they're genuinely in love. They get irritated towards each other and walk away, and almost every time when one of them walks away, they say, "But that's my baby. That's why I love you," or something along those lines.
Growing up I always had this pull towards video games. I think I get it from my father, honestly. We always played games together when we could. He always got home pretty late; I'd stay up and I'd hear him open the door and I'd run out of my room to go see him and ask how his day was. The game we played mostly and also together was God of War. The story and the bloody fun of it all was a thing we both liked. But while I was younger, I experienced something I'd never thought would happen.
One Saturday night me and my friend were in my room playing some games. Maybe three hours or so into the game, we heard an argument come from outside the room. At first I blew it off as just my dad saying stupid stuff because he came home drunk that night. But it eventually got louder after five or 10 minutes so I decided to check what was going on, and honestly I wish I hadn't. My father was on the bed with something next to him. I would go on to realize it was a shotgun a weapon, and I'm not sure if it's loaded or not. My friend's also panicking right beside me.
My mom looked at me and looked over back to my father, and said, "Go ahead, tell your son what you think of me."
My father responded with, "Your mother's a bitch, son."
My mom turns to me and my friend and tell us just to step outside and she'll handle the situation. After that she started crying even more; she was yelling at my father. My father pointed the weapon at my mom. He tells her to shut up, and honestly ,at this point I did not know what to do.
What would you do if you had a weapon pointed at you?
My mom looked at him with the most disgusted look and looked back at me and my friend. He was awful scared. She told us to step outside and wait for a little bit. Maybe like five or 10 minutes afterwards, my mom came to the door and told me to come back in the house and told my friend to go home.
We stayed over my grandmother's house for about two or three days to let my father realize what he had done. It was very quiet around the house for maybe a couple of weeks. Nothing really was talked about. The way the house went about together, it was like glue, being able to come back to completely normal and comfortable with each other after such a dire situation. It definitely takes a lot of grit and love.
Knowing that this situation has happened and they are still able to say I love you to each other is actually pretty good. Honestly I believe that they truly are in love. I guess what I'm trying to say is love is the best bandaid you can use.
Mark Gullette is a student at Thurgood Marshall STEM High School. Special thanks to Nathan Shields and Mary McKnight. Learn more at the school's website: https://www.dps.k12.oh.us/thurgood/ Support for Dayton Youth Radio comes from the Virginia W. Kettering Foundation and the Ohio Arts Council.
