At 34 years old Michelle (not her real name) is a broken woman and she believes that the ‘system’ which should have helped her has failed her miserably.
“Right now I at a point in me life where I could just tek me two children and sit in de middle of the road and cry and tell de media and everybody wah I going through and let this government see and hear about people like me, people who doing dey best but just suffering,” she blurted out before succumbing to heavy sobbing.
I let her cry, listening to her struggling to breathe between the loud sobs.
This hurting sister decided to speak through a mutual acquaintance about her experience of searching for her missing 16-year-old daughter, who was eventually found almost one week after she had left her home for lessons. But like a pipe under pressure she could not contain the years of hurt and instead told me her entire story of pain, frustration and complete hopelessness. The more than two hours on the telephone were difficult for me to listen to; it was undoubtedly twice as hard for her to tell me.
Because of the myriad experiences she recounted, I have decided to tell her story instead of allowing her to do so in her words as has been the practice of this column since it started. There are parts, however, that will remain untold to protect her and her family’s identities.
I believe her story, like the many that have appeared in this space, should be told as society needs to understand that these are real people with real issues and if it touches one person who can help then it was worth it.
This episode of despair began a few Saturdays ago when her daughter left for lessons. Michelle had wanted to keep the child at home because, “I just had the feeling that she would do something… I just know.
“I was home after working one month straight, that is how I work – one month straight then get a weekend off – and I was cleaning and changing blinds and so…” But when she told her daughter that she should stay home, the child retorted that should she fail the two subjects for which she had lessons that day then her mother should not blame her.
Michelle relented and told her she could go, but before she left, they had an argument over her choice of outfit, and she stormed out refusing to obey her mother’s instruction to change her clothes.
At that point I asked Michelle how she felt.
“I felt tired. I felt hurt. I just felt frustrated and I said to myself, ‘Lord if I put me hand on this girl today, I don’t know what will happen.’ My intention was to follow her that day, but I was so tired and there was so much work to do. I said when I done, I would go to the school and pick her up. But I do something I don’t really do, I went to the window and watched till she turn de corner,” she said.
Her plan to pick up her daughter from lessons failed because even though she called the school and asked that the child remain until she arrived, on her way to the school she was told that her daughter had somehow slipped out undetected.
The next time Michelle saw her daughter was almost five days later. She was dishevelled, suspected to be high on marijuana and several villages from where she lived in a yard known for criminal activities.
“It was sleepless nights, very stressful. You can’t eat and you can’t think, everything was a sit-and-wait game and I kept trying to convince myself somebody would call with some news,” she said of the period she could not find her daughter.
The call came after she made a public appeal, but in the interim she, her husband and family searched for the child.
“We search all dem burial ground because I say somebody kill she and dump she,” the woman said.
Reports were also made to various police stations.
The call offered a solid lead and with the help of the police they located the child. Before they approached the location, Michelle said, she received a photograph from the source of the tip confirming that her child was indeed there.
“When I see this picture, it was one of hopelessness. My child was just there, and you could see on she face something happen to her. There was a girl on she left cutting up weed and a boy on she right doing the same thing. Right away I went to the police with the information.
“It was at a place where anything you want illegal you could get. If you want weed, you could get it. If you want cocaine, it there. And if you want a gun you could get it to. As far as I know, my child never went to that area. I don’t know how she end up deh.
“But you see when we meet, somebody holler ‘police’ and I see thing wah I does only see in picture, men running and jumping in trench, scaling fence and you could see like 20 shoes and slippers in the streets and people trying to run away,” the mother shared.
“Her father and somebody else run in de yard and start calling out fuh she and she come out and say, ‘Dad! Thank God!’ you know, giving the impression she was being held against her will. I could never erase the sight… I have the pictures in my phone, is like it was not my child, not the child I know,” the mother continued.
Police have launched an investigation, the child was questioned, and the Child Care and Protection Agency was called in, according to the mother. The child is now in the process of writing exams – she missed two subjects while she was away – after which she will be counselled.
As to how she ended up at the location, the stories are many and they include her being lured by someone in the entertainment business to their home and then going to a cock-fighting event on invitation and finally arriving at the house where she was given marijuana to smoke.
This is a matter for the police to investigate and for a professional to counsel this child who is in dire need of help because her mother has reached her wits’ end.
“I only want what is best for my child. Is only two of dem I gat and she is the big one,” the mother pleaded.
Her troubles with her daughter started when the child was about 14.
“I believe the system failed me. I know the system failed me,” the mother said.
By the time she found out that her child had taken a day from school and rode a bus for the entire day, she must have been doing it for some time, but the working mother never knew.
“Leh me tell you, I working all de time. Is years I marry to me husband and is not like we went and get plenty children, we only get two and both of we working. Working, working all de time but we don’t make joke with we children education, is private school we sending both a dem but is like we in seeing we way,” the woman said in tears.
“That day when I find she in de bus after the school call me and tell me she not at school, I just pull she out and I start beating she. Somebody video it and put on Facebook all and while I beating she, she saying, ‘Y’all get this woman off of me, get this woman off of me’,” she shared, crying as she did so.
She took the child to the police station after the incident.
“I tell them look you all help me. I don’t want to lose this child and dem tell me not to let dem take she because she will go to [the New Opportunity Corps] and that will not help she, but get she worse. Dem say take her home and try with her.
“From then on is a night out here and a night out there and is always ‘I sleep by [some] friend’ and yes I would beat she, I would try but sometimes I just don’t able, is like what else I must do,” she said, the frustration in her voice evident.
“The last time I carry she back to de station she was 16 and dey tell me this child is of age she could have sex and nobody could get charge is nothing dey could do. I was like what is this what these people telling me, like I didn’t know what more to do.
“You see, my husband he don’t really beat. He don’t believe in licks. He just want things de happy but how could you be happy when this child behaving like this and when we living like how we living?”
She recalled that once when her child slept out and she found her, she cried and said she did not like where they lived. “She said, ‘Mommy I know you and Daddy does try you all best and send me to school. I not really want for nothing because you does try. But Mommy I don’t like where we living. I don’t like coming home. I don’t like dat place.’
“I start crying to because I understand what she saying. Because where we living there is no privacy, is only lef for me to carry the media and show dem. The house leaning and is just a lil space. Is family property and is like many apartments… when me children want change and me husband deh home he does have to go outside. It taking a toll on the family. It teking a toll on we marriage, because we can’t even have sex. Is like work and work and nothing else,” the frustrated mother of two said.
She disclosed that she applied for a piece of land at the age of 22 and today she is 34 and she still has not received same.
“I running to housing for years. I sure they have a picture of me by now. One time I went, and this man want sex from me. I have his name on a letter housing send me. He tell me meet he, but I go home and I tell me husband I can’t do it,” she said, crying once again.
“We can’t afford rent, but we saving a little to pay down if we get land. My husband will get a lil small loan from he work place, we just want something to start. How much more long we must wait?
“I don’t know no other man but me husband. We together since I was a teenager and is like we struggling all de time. Yes, we get furniture and so on even internet to help the children but if you see the house, is a shame.
“The house so small we can’t even talk when something bothering us, we have to go outside and my husband always concerned about the children.
“Ma’am leh me tell you, poverty is a terrible thing. I grow up in poverty and I want better for my children that is why I sending them to school but we can’t live like this anymore. I wish my story will touch somebody out there who could help us. We need a piece of land, and we need to get out of that house for my children.
“I not around making children here and there, I working. I just need some help, I need land. I want this government to know how I suffering. We working and we can’t get a piece of land. That is why like I just want to go out deh and tell everybody but I know it will shame me children so that is why I would not do it, but it too much.”
We spoke some more and she cried some more and then the conversation ended.
With the Child Care and Protection Agency involved, I do hope this child can get the help she needs. I also hope that this family is assisted with what is needed. This sister really needs help. She is trying but can’t do it on her own.
If anyone who reads can assist, maybe someone from the Central Housing and Planning Authority who can help her to get that piece of land she so badly needs, contact me at samantha_alleyne2000@yahoo.com or on telephone number 225-4637.
This sister needs help, please help if you can.
