The Beauty in Breaking

Harper recalls a vivid childhood memory of when she was seven years old, praying to a guardian angel to save her from the domestic violence that her father, Morris, perpetrated—primarily on her mother and brother. She expressed a longing for safety and security, a desire that in that moment felt like an impossible wish. Her life as a seven-year-old child, and for several years to come, was filled with fear and anxiety. As a tween, she finally worked up the courage to call 9-1-1 on her father, but the police were unconvinced that her father posed a threat to the rest of the family.

After a particularly violent confrontation between her father and her brother, her brother ended up in the emergency room. As Harper observed the dynamic of the emergency room world, she became completely enthralled and fascinated by it despite the chaos and urgency. Later, at home, she wondered if someday she could become an emergency room doctor and provide an “offering to the world” (19) in response to her own tumultuous upbringing.