“I used to get licks for tea, breakfast and dinner. You think is two cents I went through in this life? But what a guh do? I just have to keep living and hoping that something will work out for me; something somehow.”
The desperate words of a 44-year-old mother of seven children, the youngest being 14. If ever there was a person who was dealt a bad hand in life it is this sister, and for her and her children it is a vicious cycle of poverty and abuse.
“Miss, leh me tell you something, it does be hard nuff days, but I can’t give up,” she said, close to tears.
Life dealt her another sucker punch recently when her second-to-last son was viciously murdered. At just the age of 16, he was working and trying to assist his mother financially. While she had no issue with her name being published, I decided she should remain anonymous in this space.
“I really don’t know how I will get pass this [her son’s death] but I am trying. I have my other children and they is me family. Besides them, I have nothing or nobody,” she said sadly.
The father of her seven children took her as his partner when she was just a teenager, but never married her. Today he has moved on and is married with one child from that union.
“I never really know my father and my mother. I was growing up with this man and woman and I used to call them mommy and daddy, but then I get to know that them was not me parents,” she related. … It was the woman who tell me. Me mother went to she house and ask fuh some water and she just lef me as a baby in front of de house and de woman tek me and mind me.”
She was told that her mother returned once and said she wanted her, but the woman indicated that she had to repay the money she had already spent to support her.
“My mother like she didn’t have no money and she lef and she never come back. Is til when I get big I get to know who is me mother. And she get two other children, two boys, but she don’t have no time with me.”
As she got older, the man she called ‘daddy’ made her uncomfortable with the attention he gave her.
“He used to like peep me and so I used to feel frighten and is like he want do something. He always there when I changing me clothes and so and watching me.
“When I tell she, he used to like punish me. When we sit down at the table he would like watch me and pull away the food. But I used to ignore he because she like she did get old and like she didn’t used to believe wah I tell she. But he never touch me. I tell me children that he never touch me,” she said.
She said her foster mother never had children, having lost them during childbirth and she was like “the baby in the house” but her foster father had children with other women.
“I used to get nice treatment. I used to go to school with car. Man, life did nice. I was like the rich girl in this village…,” she recalled. “Is when she get sick and pass away, is then trials and tribulations start. Mommy dead and she did leave the place for me, but he take away everything. When she dead, he tell me is either I live with he as he wife or move out. I tell he ‘Daddy no, I can’t do that. Imagine you clean me, you bathe me, how it guh look, how it guh feel’. But he tell me no, it nah guh feel anyway and he tell me one out of de two – live with he or tek the road. Well I tek the road.”
She had nowhere to go, but a young police officer whom she knew from passing their home took an interest in her. She was just 15 at the time.
‘Bad to worse’
“He tell me that he would carry me by he mother and I say good because I had nowhere else to go. I come out a school and went with he and I used to live with he mother. Well as a mother-in-law, some days she like me, some days she hate me and that is how it used to go,” she recalled.
Eventually her partner built a small extension behind his mother’s house and she got pregnant with her first child. Shortly after giving birth, she was pregnant again.
“Things just start getting from bad to worse. Nothing ain’t used to please he and like when I pregnant it was worse. Even if he come home and find the house clean and everything he used to find something to quarrel to get all a we running out of the house.
“The money was always short what he used to give and when it done is a problem. He used to tell me go and find money and I used to say where I guh and get it from. And if you ask he family fuh anything they used to talk about it. And me didn’t really know nobody deh and all me children was small, small, I couldn’t go and get a wuk.
“It start to get more overbearing because he used to sleep out and stop giving me money and I had to start begging people in in de area. … I had a friend, you know, who I used to tell what I going through and she used to tell me I must pray and suh, and then she turn around and get a child with me children father,” she said, still sounding shocked.
“I used to be like trying to get help and sometimes he used to beat me if I tell anybody anything. It was licks for anything and nothing… One time, he put me out and I guh by a friend and I carry all a dem with me and this girl throw down a sheet and me and me children lie down on de ground.
“When I lying down now, I feel somebody touching me. When I wake up, I see she husband. He done strip naked. I say wah is this man? And he telling me how he want lil bit, and I telling he no, that he is me friend husband. I had to get up and brace me back and I fall in a doze. When I wake up back, de man still deh. I tell me friend and she put me out,” she shared.
“You see when me children father used to beat me, he used to pick a whip and lock me children outside and beat me. And he mother in front rejoicing. As soon as he come home she had things fuh tell he. I used to try to please she, but still she used to find something. When he come home and I see she talking, is suh me used to deh ringing me hand; big woman like me, ringing me hand because me frighten, I ain’t know what she telling he. Me belly [would] start hurt and when he come in he cuss up and he used to tell me big son to go and pick de whip. And he would say when I done with you mother is either she dead or she alive,” she continued.
“Some days I wanted to go away but I used to study me children dem. If I go away and leave dem what will happen to dem? Because I know is ill treatment. I had to tek me licks and stay or run away with me children. One time he did beat me when I was pregnant and I run away and I used to live in a home, but then I went back, and the licks continue. It was terrible, terrible.”
She shared that there were times when he threatened to kill her with a cutlass and she and her children would be chased down the road.
One day she had enough, and she decided to return to the village where she once lived.
“The licks mek I had to leave. I couldn’t take it anymore. I beg a lady for money, and I tell she not to tell he and I tell she how I would give she back, but I never give she back because she come and dead. But she tell me she know what I was going through. Me ain’t shame to tell you, I come to town with two salt bags, me head tie up like a mad woman and I didn’t know where I was going. Girl it wasn’t easy. Although I talking here, it growing me skin when I remember dem things,” she recounted.
Ultimatum
She got a job as a security guard and rented a room in a hotel and that is where she lived with her children for a while. She worked for $14,000 and $4,500 was paid to the hotel owner for the room they occupied. Her reputed husband found her some years later.
“One day I was walking home and just so this man just give me one slap to me face. I tell you, I see stars, I see clouds everything and he telling me to go and get dem children and go back with he and I say I not going. He find me workplace and accuse me of all kind a thing. But de man at de workplace carry me to de police and de police was looking fuh he. He was not a police anymore. He never come back after that,” she said.
Eventually she was forced to move from the hotel, as someone reported her to the then Ministry of Human Services and Social Security and she was given an ultimatum.
“Dey tell me if I don’t find somewhere else to live, dem would tek me children and I didn’t want dem do that, so I find a lil apartment. It was still trials and tribulations but although we punish I never turn me back on me children. I try with de lil bit I had. But it was not enough, it was never enough.”
None of her children completed secondary school. She said of her son who was recently killed, “He fail suh much that even dem teacher get fed up with he. Dem tell me to try to send he to something technical”.
But then COVID-19 came, and the youth started working and assisting her financially. Her eldest son helps her, but he has a family of his own. One of her daughters, who is 29 years old, is unwell and lives with her mother. Another has three very young children and lives with her partner. A third daughter, aged 24, also has a child and she, along with a fourth daughter, aged 20, lives with their mother and her youngest son.
“We live in like a room, but we buss it up, so everybody get dem own space and we does pay twenty grand a month for it,” she said.
She still works as a security guard but due to the death of her son she has been home for the last few weeks.
“A guh go back, but right now I can’t do it. It hard for me right now. Since he dead and bury nobody don’t even call and see how a making it out, nothing. It hard. Dem father he move on with he wife and he don’t have no time with he children.
“Me son dead and I need justice. I not giving up on life I still hoping to come out dis place. I don’t know if somebody guh sorry fuh me, if the government would sorry fuh me and give me a piece of land. Sometimes I would wish I had a mother, you know. like I could talk to. If dah lady didn’t dead things woulda be better. My mother, she gat two sons and I is like a stranger. She gat she own place and I can’t even go and visit.
“It hurt me because, you know, I does study wah I do in life to deserve this. But I can’t give up, I have to still keep trying.”
This sister is still grieving, and her children are of little or no support to her. It was difficult listening to her, knowing that there was not much I could do to help her. She wanted her story to be told. She is willing to accept any form of assistance and anyone interested in assisting can contact this newspaper for information on how to get in touch with her.
