I WAS ONLY 6 OR 7 YEARS OLD

The memory of her has haunted me my whole life starting from age six or maybe seven years old.

How do you justify not doing something to help even if you are just a clueless child. We were taught to be seen and not heard back then. Strictness was severely adhered to.

I do not want to benefit from another's pain.

I have tried writing it before. Too painful.

Still.

I feel that if I write it down, If I share it the burden might be a little easier to bear.

This really happened. True story. Names have been changed for GRACE and EMPATHY and APOLOGY.

For all women hidden behind the veils of abuse and torture and death.

WE SEE YOU.

WE HEAR YOU.

WE REACH OUT TO YOU.

ALBEIT SILENTLY, WE SHALL USE WHATEVER TOOL IS AT OUR DISPOSAL.

SOME SHALL WRITE , SOME SHALL RALLY, SOME SHALL FIGHT, BUT, WE ARE HERE UNITED.

The dark sad tale begins in a poor community in a multi layered housing project in the Caribbean.

Houses were haphazardly placed within a barely respectful distance from each other. They were kept clean by the hard working mothers who had many children running free and wild.

Most were kept fed as best as possible and we were happy and totally unaware of the monstrosity that lurks in shadows.

Oblivious to the fact that we were not advantaged, content just to be.

I had three brothers ahead of me and it seemed my mother was always bringing a new baby home. Total seven.

The house was always full of cousins and other relatives and strangers, poor as we were, funded by my poor father and his sister in USA.

I write this to say that maybe my mother or the other neighbors were too busy with the many responsibilities of large families to hear the screams of the child next door.

I heard them. All hours of the day and night.

Even at that age could I have been a ship on the horizon for that young child.

Could I have asked questions as to why this behavior was not acted upon by people in the surrounding area. Other parents, somebody.

Why did no one help her.

Why is it that when people have bad relationships, they rain down their wrath upon poor unsuspecting innocent children.

I still remember this woman's name. Mrs. Barkalay. Her face showed pure evil and meanness. I was scared of her.

The few times I saw her I ran away to hide.

She had maybe five children. But the oldest girl incurred all the wrath that she could muster.

I cannot say whether or not she abused the other children.

In fact I do not remember seeing them come out to play. I heard them over the fence, but cannot recollect them playing with other children.

She would beat the oldest child unmercifully. It appeared that if the other children misbehaved she would beat her.

She got beaten because she looked most like her father.

The mother would have her strip her clothes off and beat her, right there in front of the other children.

She would scream at the child and such horrible things she would say. She should be dead, she said horrid things about the father of the child. Was it the child's fault that the man went away, leaving her a single mother to raise children,

The man must have left because she was a horrible person.

Oh! man, whoever you are. Do you think of the children when you leave them with these horrible women. Walking away, leaving women to fend for themselves and the children.

Oh! woman, you brought them into the world.

She would wake her up in the middle of the night and beat her. I do not know what else happened in that house to make that child scream so much all hours of the night.

The torture and the apathy of others makes me cringe even today.

One day I heard her being beaten and then she came out of the house stark naked with a large pail .

She was at the age when she was growing breasts and had the beginnings of pubic hair.

The community had water in the houses.

But this woman sent the poor naked young impressionable child in a vulnerable time of her life, to walk a little less than a mile away to go bring water home. She had running water in her house.

I stood there looking at the poor scarred child. I was totally oblivious as to the underlying causes of the incident at the time. I knew it was not right. Nobody else was doing that to their child or children.

Kids were spanked, yes, but that was the norm, you got a little spanking when you misbehaved.

This was different, even to my childish senses.

How many ways can you possibly concoct to bring shame on a person, on a child.

I was not close enough to see the physical scars. But I did not need to be,

the mental scars far outweighed any skin deformity.

That particular incident was indelibly printed on my subconscious and stayed there to this day.

I was seven then, had it been now, in these days of precocious childhood, would I have been better equipped to say "this is wrong, do something".

I am a lot times seven years old now.

Yet every day you hear the stories. Children.

Still suffering. Dying.

We moved away not long after that.

I can't help but wonder what happened to the poor child.

Maybe the mother died a horrible painful death early.

I wonder what her story was.

But forgiveness.!!!!!!!?.

Maybe someone took her children away.

I am good with either situation.

Forgiveness?!!!!!!. Forgive.

It is the better choice.

The imp on the right says forgive. On the left, however, there is a fight.

I pray that young woman now maybe a mother and grandmother finally found success, peace and happiness.

Please forgive me. I was only six maybe seven years old.

I have to edit this. I do not want to read it again.

I am now a tiny cog in an organization feeding malnourished children all over the world.

They operate in over one hundred and seventy six countries across the globe.

We need members.

My tiny contribution to something bigger than myself.

Atonement.

I do not dwell on the past , but since I started writing it keeps popping up, so I can let go. I make my thoughts be free on the WWW.

Welcome in. Help feed a child.

PIC DAVID MARCU-UNSPALSH