Here I sit with tears running down my face, the dog standing on my lap and anxiously peering in my face, licking the moisture on my cheeks and trying to impart in his doggy wisdom that everything is going to be alright or as my kinfolk use to say: er ting gon be all right.
I thought it was. I really did. I will be 60 years old in March. A far cry from that child of the past who was stumbing around in the dark, alone, afraid, abused. I am still Catherinesdaughter, I always will be...but I am more...much more. I was a wife, I am a scholar , I am a mother a grandmother, a lover, a friend, a survivor ....a damn dog owner ( to the best Yorkie in the whole wide world...we took a vote...Charming won hands down). But this morning I found traces of that hurt little girl.
It started so innocently. A friend from my Bible power hour is recording her testimony of domestic abuse on YouTube. That takes courage in itself. While I can write my words down via my computer on a blog, I don't know if I could strip myself naked or let myself become more vulnerable by speaking my truth to a camera to later be played over and over by the masses. YouTube is television for people who don't like to read. If you want to know my story you have to read and let's face it....with technology...read like cursive hand writting is becoming a lost art.
But I digress. Any who.. I was listening to this lady tell the story of (part2) of how her twins father systematically broke her down emotionally, mentally and the horrific physical abuse he heaped on her. her....HER....but in part 2 it was not just her anymore, his verbal abuse found it's way to her child, his physical abuse found it's way to her helpless child. A child like myself who had no power and no sayso in the life that her mother CHOSE to live, a life that impacted this child. I listened to my friend describe the words this man used one day to address her child, Ug-Mo, useless, your daddy does't love you and I don't either. How my friend describe how he stripped her child naked and held her over a toilet and how she pleaded with him to stop. Pleaded? PLEADED?! You didn't kill him?! my mind was shouting. And I saw myself, I heard the worlds: "No one wants you" Yo momma don't want you, Yo daddy tried to kill you...Reform school...we gon send you to reform school....you so ugly.....let me touch you...don't tell nobody........you got no where to go...nobody loves you.......
STOP IT!!!!!
At that moment I hated my friend. I became her child...we merged became one....the frightened,abused, unloved, alone child.
And I realized ....no matter how I've grown....no matter that I am now loved or what I have accomplished....a part of me will always be that child...it ...she is part of my DNA. We will always co-exist. The majority of the time (thank you GOD) I am the stronger...at times such as this morning...she materializes ...makes her presence known and I weep for her pain...for the lose of her innocence.
So that was my Ah Ha moment....I realized past pain is not banished pain. It is part and sum of who we are.
I couldn't finish my friends video. I feel the anger toward her leaving my body now, my tears have dried, my heart has stopped hammering in my chest, the dog has calmed down and is bugging me to take him outside....the anger has subsided....but the pain.....my old friend....hello...but you will find no welcome mat or warm hearth here....I am much stronger....my tears make me stronger...my present makes me stronger....my GOD makes me stronger, even this 5 lb dog makes me stronger and I am the new and improved and highly favored ....CATherinesdaughter
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