I was going through some old boxes to make room for next year when I found a small little torn up box marked with a check and the letters "ICU". I opened it and fumbled through old pictures and birthday cards when I found one that caught my eye.. a small envelope with a purple ribbon hanging out from the torn opening. I slid the card out from its foreign sheath and stopped to read the addresses in the envelope. It was sent from a fort in Korea by my step dad during 2008. 2008 was the year before I moved to lovely little Lawton, Oklahoma.... the card was decorated with flowers and purple lettering that read, "Sometimes even the prettiest flowers grow from the biggest piles of manure." On the inside of the card, "Hang in there. It can only get worse before it can get better," was printed in curly, blue letters. In my step dads hand writing it said, "Sorry, I couldn't find a birthday card but I got you this one for encouragement.. This money isn't much but use it on something useful for yourself. Keep up the good grades and I'll send more money. Love, your dad..." With each word a huge, fat tear rolled down my cheek and I didn't even notice I had started crying. The memories of when I was little flooded my head and I closed the card. I could hear a little girl's voice saying, "no, your my Soriano," and he would say "no, I'm my Soriano," and we would both laugh as we playfully argued.... he would lift me up in the air by his shins and pretend like I was a flying air plane.. at those times we were close.. But as the years went on we grew cold and desolate towards each other.. After being deployed three times he had began to act strange.. He started lying and making my mother cry and I started a small snowball of black, cold, hatred for him. We were never the playful little fun people we were once upon a time, and that little girl was now a little, depressed, socially awkward, dark, cold, antisocial, shadow that saw hate in everything. The first time he hit me was only the beginning and I started making useless, little plans of destroying him. I thought I could make a difference.. As things between us got worse my mother grew ill. She would sleep all day, work all night, throw up constantly and have nightmares.. I blamed him for it all.. when things got to the very bottom of the bottle it was an exact mirror image of my real dad, throwing things, breaking things, name calling, bruises and bleeding children, broken glass.. That's when I started picking up the razors and blaming myself.. I felt like that was what I drew out of the men that became my father's.. I blamed myself for it all.. He was diagnosed with PTSD in 2012, three years after we moved to the Fort Sill state.. I tried making excuses for him but it was all useless as my mom got even worse and ended up in the hospital for surgery.. He was ordered by the state of Oklahoma to not lay another hand on us or he would lose his job and go to prison for multiple accounts of domestic violence, disrupting the peace, being intoxicated and violent in public, threatening people, and intent to cause bodily harm or battery.. Now he hit everyone with words instead of physically hurting.. I began to lose my mind.. But as his words got softer over time we began to have a certain understanding. I was always the one who would fight back when things got bad and he began to realize that I wasn't one to accept it.. Somehow it brought us closer again.. Now looking at this card brought back a flood of heartache and I thought about how things can only get worse to get better because you can't fix anything that isn't broken. This card somehow foreshadowed this moment.. things like this make me believe in magic.. "Sometimes the prettiest flowers grow from the biggest piles of manure."