I was just a Child

Growing up I lived with my paternal grandparents, while living there my dad came to stay with us because he was ill. Though I didn’t get the hugs and kisses I wanted from him, I was happy to finally brag to my friends about my dad. Then one day after school I was greeted by an empty gloomy bedroom where he stayed. Something felt empty inside of me, and my grandmother told me that he had to be taken to The Queen Elizabeth Hospital because he got very sick. I couldn’t go to visit him because I was underage, and every day I would run home from school hoping to see him, sadly one day my world crashed into a million pieces when I was told my dad was dead, and I wouldn’t see him again. I was confused!

Coping with my dad’s death was challenging for me, but then something happened that carried me further into confusion and disbelief.  I was home alone, from my bedroom window, I watched my grandmother walking gingerly in the midday sun with an umbrella held over her head, while on an errand. Suddenly, I noticed a presence in my room, it was my pastor who was working in our yard fixing a car. He stood right next to me and looked through the window and said, “your mummy is walking fast.” He held my elbow and turned me away from the window. He led me to the bed, and I was totally bewildered.

He kept bidding me to relax, and then he lifted my skirt and parted my legs, then a burning and stretching sensation took over my vagina, as he evaded my innocence at nine years old.

I was just a child and that day I felt as though my childhood as I had known it was over and to some extent it was. That day I became a liar and a pretender. I pretended that I was okay, and I lied to my grandmother when she asked, “Sharon what’s wrong with you, are you okay?”  My Pastor had already informed me that no one would believe me if I told them what happened, and he also bid me to keep my mouth shut about this ordeal.

I no longer sat with my legs opened and relaxed the way innocent little girls did, I made sure that my private area was hidden. Because I felt ashamed. I hardly played as I did before, and I became very angry with my pastor and my innocent friends who were still virgins. All I wanted was to be a child and now my childhood was interrupted by my grief, sexual abuse and the back-breaking weight of the secret.

                                                                                Written by Sharon Douglin

                                                                                              Barbados