“Sometimes I would sit in my house for days and don’t come out and nobody would understand the depression I going through. At times it get so bad like I don’t want to do anything, but with every day I still thanking God that I still living.
“Is all the things I thinking about my life and how it could have gone differently. But you know, I sorry to say this but it is the truth, my mother have a lot to do with it and I does ask God to help me to forgive she, but I don’t know.
“People does see me behaving bad, yea I know I does behave lawless sometimes, but nobody don’t know is just me trying to like drown out all them things in me head and not to think about what happen to me in this life,” she told me.
It was a very candid conversation I had with a sister I have known all my life. We drifted apart for years as she got married at a very young age. I still have minor children, but her four children are adults and that and the fact that for years we lived in different regions meant that we were not in contact. Over the years I have heard, and on a few occasions witnessed, what she described as her behaving ‘lawless’ and maybe that was one of the reasons we did not connect. But now as we are both getting older, I promised myself that I will catch up with her from time to time, even if it is just a phone call. We saw each other recently and she offloaded for hours. And now I wished I had done more, maybe just been kinder, a little helpful.
I am somewhat haunted and ashamed.
“I never liked that man, much less love he and today even thinking about it I does feel scorn. You know, the first time we do it [she struggled to say the word sex] I was so scorn and then right away I get pregnant. Girl let me tell you, for nine months I cry, yes nine months I cry because that is not the life I did want for myself,” she told me.
The man she referred to is her former husband whom she was with since she was about 14 years old.
“Why I take him is because I just had to get out of the house and that was the only way out. I never tell you, but my father try to have sex with me. I could remember it like if it was yesterday, but I don’t like talk about it. It happen two times and he didn’t get he way. But I know if I continue living there something bad woulda happen. I didn’t have education, and nobody never tell me, but I know that it was wrong for a father to do that and I woulda defend meself. The last time he slap me, and I could still remember the slap, but I hold out.
“When I tell me mother you know what the woman tell me? She tell me how we can’t tell nobody how it guh bring shame on the family. I beg the woman to send me away because I did want something better. I beg she to send me to a family so I could go back to school and learn. I tell she how I wouldn’t tell nobody but like she didn’t trust me, she tell me is better I tek somebody and start life.
“She is the woman who choose that man for me. I woulda prefer somebody else, but she tell me no, how he could better take care of me. By that time, I been just want to get out so I just do it.”
She related her experiences in a matter of fact manner. There was hardly any emotion when she spoke except at points when she got very angry and used a few profanities, but no tears came. I believe she is all cried out at this point.
The life she shared with her husband will make for another piece because it was so much but it was years of torment and when she finally picked up and left him, her relatives were upset that she did not want to give it another chance.
“He was just not right for me. It was not the kind of man I would take, and you know I don’t think he is the kind of man any woman would take. As far as I know, I must be the only woman he ever had. I lef years and years ago and he didn’t have another relationship. He was just not a good man and he is the man me mother make I end up with.
“The things that happen to me in this life sometimes I does ask me self if I really went through all them things. Most times I would say it was like rape when we had sex, because I never was in the mood to do it with he. And you know like I said before, just thinking about he touching me does crawl me skin.
“But leh we don’t talk about he right now. It is me mother and father who make all them things happen. I don’t know how a woman could put she husband over she daughter,” she said, and this time she spoke quietly.
“This woman, my mother, help to destroy my life and I can’t forgive she. I does talk to her and so but is like she don’t understand what she do to me, and that is the hardest. Everybody does be talking about the kinda woman I turn out to be. I is always the bad one, always the lawless one, but even though some a them know some a the things, is like they can’t understand how I get so.
“One time I get to tell me father how I feel. but the man tell me I lying. And you know what? Only God could come and tell me he didn’t interfere with me small sister. But she did big and she shoulda say no,” she said.
I told her that each person reacts differently to sexual assault, while some resist others might submit especially if it is a person in authority. She angrily disagreed with me because she has other issues with her sister, which both of them are yet to address. She is not prepared to reconcile with her sister.
“She is a wicked woman, I telling you. You don’t know. She is a wicked woman,” she maintained, sweeping aside my encouragement to work it out with her only female sibling.
“Right now, for me, I trying to get my life together. All my children are adults and they move on. They and all does be ungrateful sometimes, but I love them, and I know growing up was hard. They make they decisions and now is for me to move, but girl I tell you I don’t know. Sometimes I does just be afraid to come out.
“Like sometimes when I go down to town, I does like lost away, like I don’t know where I does be. And I does have to take like deep breaths and then calm down and try to get home.”
I suspect she suffers from anxiety attacks and I told her so. I also suggested that she needs counselling because of the many unresolved issues she has, which she admits torments her most times.
“Yea I know I need counselling but sometimes like does don’t able. Like how I done talk to you here, I feel better, at least somebody listen, and you understand what I saying. I think I take up too much of you time, must call me and invite me to church. I going now man,” she said before she left.
For a long time after she left, I attempted to reconcile what she told me in my mind, but I just couldn’t. A lot of what she does and says now makes sense and I will no longer judge her, which is what I did in the past. It is not my place; it was never my place.
