Today I am sharing some recent conversations as well as information I read on Facebook that I found interesting, disconcerting and downright barbaric. Of course, I prefer to start with a somewhat heartwarming but yet sad conversation I had with a sister before I get into others that are distasteful or may even trigger some people based on their life’s experiences.
“My son and I were talking, and we talk a lot,” a sister said to me recently. I really liked the part where she said ‘we talk a lot’, because talking to our children is very important.
“And you know he was like; I am trying to remember how he got to that point but it is not coming to me. But anyway, he said to me, ‘you know a girl in my class have no mother’ and right away you know I sit up because when he said it, he sounded so sad,” the sister told me.
“I asked him how she got to tell him and he said she was telling the teacher and he heard and then she started telling him. According to what he said the child was in a vehicle with her mother and she fell asleep and when she woke up her mother was dead. If I am not wrong he said she woke up in a hospital. He said she now lives with her dad and stepmother and that when she cries sometimes because she misses her mom, her stepmother would tell her it is time she gets over it. ‘And then she start to cry’, he said to me.
“I had to fight not to cry when he said that but I ask him what he did when she cried and he say he just sat there and kind of look away because he didn’t know what to do. ‘But you know her stepmother should know is her mother and she can’t get over it,’ he then tell me. And it was like if this child could understand that how could the stepmother not understand?” the sister asked, not expecting an answer.
As she spoke, I almost cried because I felt so sorry for this unknown little girl who was grieving her mom and who will never stop grieving, even when she becomes an adult. The memories may fade but she will always remember she had a mom.
The sister told me that a few days later she asked her son how the child was doing.
“She going alright, she does still talk about she mother, you know like remember the happy times they had,” she said he answered her. She said he also told her that it was sad that the child’s mother did not live to see that she got a ‘very good school’ at the Grade Six examination.
This conversation stayed with me for a while. It was heartwarming because the sister’s son, from all indications, is a kind child and he also has the emotional maturity to listen to a classmate who needed to talk. It also made me sad that the stepmother of the little girl in question does not seem to understand the magnitude of her pain. She does not understand as well that the child needs her more, now that her mother is no more.
If you are a stepmother out there, please treat your partner’s child/children the same way you treat yours.
Sexual assault on the seawall
In another conversation just recently, I was discussing the horrific rape of a Linden woman last week by someone who broke into her home. The person raped and robbed her. And the individual with whom I was talking recalled how she was sexually assaulted some years ago.
What struck me was that she never told anyone about it until now.
“I don’t know what I would do if it was me, I rather they kill me,” she said to me about the woman in Linden.
“You know I never tell anyone but when I was much younger I went on the seawall with my boyfriend and you know we were making out and so on. Girl, I don’t know where this man appear from but he just come with a knife and tell me boyfriend move away and that he have to get something from me.
“My pants was down and this man force me on me knees and he was like trying to get inside me and you know I just squeeze me butt cheeks so he can’t enter and he trying and trying. I squeeze tight and it was like I want scream but nothing ain’t coming out. And is like he fighting and fighting and then just like that he loose me and say something like I can’t even give he a proper erection and walk away.
“I just left there lying down crying like I didn’t know what to do. And you know I don’t know where he [referring to her then boyfriend] disappear but all I see he come back and all I was thinking was that this man didn’t even try to fight to save me he just maybe run away. And this made me so mad and I know then that he was not the one for me. I didn’t say anything but I know it was over. I never report to the police or anything but you know every time I hear about rape and so on I does remember. I does still thank God that the man did not get in,” the woman said to me.
I suggested to her that maybe she should still seek some counselling but she told me no. She told me that she ended the relationship with the boyfriend shortly after and she has moved on but it is a memory that will remain with her forever.
Parents did not believe
I read on Facebook, the plea of a mother for the arrest of the rapist of her teenage daughter. She shared that her daughter, a student, took a taxi and instead of taking her to school the driver took her to another location and brutally raped her.
She chronicled that the police did not even take her child for a rape kit to be done but told her to take her home for a bath because at the time her monthly menstruation was in progress. But using her intuition the mother took her daughter to the hospital and the doctor informed that the rape kit could be done but he had to call the police.
The mother also said the child had taken a photograph of the monster and when it was shown to the officers they said it was not the first time he had done something like that. It appears as if the man was taken into custody, charged, placed on bail and now is not returning to court.
The woman was appealing for assistance for him to be brought to justice for her child whom she said continues to suffer.
I do hope this man is not allowed to get away.
But it was a comment left on this post that had me shuddering. A woman shared that as a child she was raped on the seawall. She said that at the time many young girls were going missing and her parents were looking for her for a few hours, it seems. When she was found, or she found them she reported the assault and her parents did not believe her.
She was taken home, beaten and forced to kneel and hold some books in her outstretched hands as a punishment. She said the police were involved but they did not seem to believe that she was raped as well and from what I derived no one was ever charged.
This woman also chillingly said that her parents took her home and forcefully put pepper on her vagina. Now imagine just being assaulted and then peppered. Even without being assaulted it would be horrific for anyone should pepper be placed on their privates.
As I read that account I cried for that child who is now a woman and I prayed that she heals somehow. She said even if her parents did not believe her the police should have. I am not sure, the first to believe must be our parents.
Parents listen to your children. You are their first protector, comforter, doctor, psychologist, teacher and every other thing. Let us try not to fail in any of these regards. We can do better. Let us do better. I do pray that this sister, if she has children, can be a much better parent than hers were.
Those were some of the issues that partially occupied my mind last week and I just thought I should share.
