Becky Ellis | Writers' Voices

In her debut memoir, Little Avalanches: A Novel, author and writing instructor, Becky Ellis, writes about her emotional and tumultuous journey growing up as a World War II veteran’s daughter. Along the way, she delves into her father’s war story as he fought as a combat soldier in World War II and the horrific traumas he brought back with him, even as he was celebrated as a war hero. “I felt like everything that happened in my childhood was a result of his trauma, his war trauma, his combat trauma. He was on the battlefield for 172 days and his unit, the 104th Infantry Division, they had the most days of consecutive battle than any other infantry division in World War II. They made it 195 days of continuous battle, and my father was on the battlefield for over six weeks without changing his clothes, or taking a shower, or sleeping in a bed, or having a hot meal, or brushing his teeth, or any of that… he was a rifleman, and the rifleman had a very high casualty rate and his unit had a 300% casualty rate, so he saw men die constantly and men be replaced constantly… kids, they were 17, 18, 19.” As a result of his combat experiences, Ellis’ father was an alcoholic and his behaviors and actions towards his children were unpredictable and, on occasion, dangerous. “I believe my father carried his trauma and his guilt to his last breath, and I was with him when he took that last breath, and I think that his soul was so wounded that it was something that he could never really escape.”

During the time she spent with her father, Ellis always felt as if there was something bigger than him that could explain why he acted the way he did. She wanted to understand him in order to grasp why her childhood was so different than other kids she knew. “You get three pages into his story and all of a sudden, you’re flooded with empathy… that was something that I really wanted to convey is that if we understand another person’s experience, we might change our position and we might have empathy because my father did reach a point in his story when I was flooded with empathy. It was a point that was so unimaginable to me and at that moment, that was a real transition in my life because I finally saw my father as someone separate from myself, and as a man totally apart from me with his own life experience… when I finally saw him for who he was, all those expectations and desires fell away… and I could feel him for the man that he was, how wounded he had been, and that changed my life and it allowed me to see other people that way. That’s the moment when I finally, really, felt my humanity.”