I’m yet to understand the true meaning of love. There are so many variations of it that it’s impossible to keep up because when push comes to shove, there’s always a tinge of selfishness accompanying the act and proclamation of love.
I was too young to understand that I had something he wanted. I was too young to know I was to push him away and fight even harder. I was too young to know I should have ignored his threats and gathered as much strength that my little hands could muster. I was too young to know that I was to fight off the face I had grown to love. I was too young, but I learned to hate him early enough.
Unfortunately, as clear as daylight, I remember the dark night my 17-year-old brother raped my seven-year-old body.
But, I’m going to spare you the stinging details of the horrific act because such stories have become a media mainstay in recent times and like you, it sickens me to my stomach. I wasn’t crucified that night, no; my cross was still being made. While my little body was stretched beyond the limit of a seven-year-old, my brother warned me to desist from telling our parents if I didn’t want to be labelled a liar and a witch.
You see, I had very religious parents who cared more about how many neighbours saw them clutching their Guinness Book of Record-looking Bibles on their way to church, and less of what was written in it. Their mindset was of the old order, the one where women were laden with the task of suppressing their feelings and letting each gruesome emotion maim her insides.
But they loved me. I believed they did. “They should love me enough to believe me,” I repeatedly told myself this until it became the trust that enveloped my fear.
So, at age 13, more than half a decade later, I told my mom what my monstrous brother had done to me. With teary eyes, I laid bare every detail, ensuring I left nothing out. Her words shocked me back to reality, “But, my dear, if it really happened, how can you remember everything since you were so small?” I wasn’t sure how to respond; how could I tell her that the incensed act of a brother raping his sister was near-impossible to forget? “Mummy I…” even my words failed me as much as the word, ‘If,’ threw me off.
“Mummy, did you say ‘if’? Does that mean you don’t believe me?” I looked at her through a pool of salty tears blurring my vision, silently asking for her – my mother – to believe me.
“Listen, my dear don’t cry. You know sometimes children don’t really remember things well; sometimes they forget. Maybe you saw the story somewhere or it was your friend it happened to and not you. But if it happened to you, keep it to yourself and make sure you don’t tell your daddy if not he’ll be angry with you”
“Angry with me?! But I’m not the one who did something wrong, why would daddy be angry with me?” I couldn’t understand anything. I returned to my room emotionally deflated while recalling the words of my mother which corroborated my brother’s warning. There was no outrage, there was no justice; there was only a woman who was eager to portray the ideal family to the world at all cost.
To maintain the charade and prevent a volcanic eruption from the brewing tension in the house, my mom convinced my unsuspecting father to send me to a boarding school away from my brother who was already a university graduate and a jobless, live-in post-graduate. I was punished for being the victim.
I’m 26 years old and I’ll be getting married to the love of my life next year. Till today, I haven’t gotten the justice I deserve because my mother silenced me, and it’s broken a part of me that can’t be [easily]fixed.
A few close friends who are privy to my story have tried to share my mom’s perspective: how does she choose between her children? But the choice was never between her children; it was (and is) always between right and wrong.