When we last parted ways, it was the beginning of the end and now we’ve reached the end of my short childhood. Now I’m going to tell you how it all ends and HELL begins.

Meeting Mom Again

I hadn’t seen my mother or even remembered anything about her up until that time, but all I knew was that, just like any other young child that would have seen other children with their mothers, so loving and caring to them, I wanted my mummy too. I wanted my mummy to love me, hug me and tell me that I was someone special to her, but little did I know that this was to be the end of my childhood.

So, upon my father knowing how badly I wanted my mom in my life, one day after meeting her in the heart of San Juan while on his way home from running errands. He came to me all excited with the good news that my mummy had asked to see me and was hoping that I would have been willing to spend some quality time with her at her home.

Being that I had wanted this for so long and had expressed my feelings on the matter to my dad more times than he had wanted to recall, I never hesitated to say YES when he asked to me if I was wanted to go spend a bit of time with my mom and siblings.

Not very long after this day, the time had come to meet my mummy, the moment that I felt like I had waited all my life to come, was finally upon us. That Friday, I excitedly packed my knapsack in preparation for the long weekend that was ahead. It was the Emancipation holiday’s upcoming anniversary.

I nor my siblings didn’t have to go to school and I thought that I finally had other children to play with for as long as I wanted to. I knew nothing about the strange woman that I was about to meet, but in spite of her being a stranger I had an abundance of love for her and was so anxious to finally get the opportunity to meet the person that gave birth to me, that I trembled while I held on to daddy’s hand as we walked from where the car had dropped us off to where she and my siblings lived.

The first person that greeted me was Nicole my then eleven year old sister with a warm embrace, after which she was followed by the rest of my siblings and my pregnant waddling mother. Daddy let of my hand so that everyone could have gotten close to me. My mummy got close to me and wrapped her arms around me but the hug I received that day wasn’t as warm as Nicole’s.

My father then said his good byes to me after pulling my mother away for a bit to talk. The longer I stayed I felt strange, a fell of unease just came over me and I just couldn’t understand why I felt like that. Dad said that he would be back for me after the weekend and believed him.

Was I Truely Rude?

In the days of my up bringing, parents never used the correct terminology for our the different parts of the male and female reproductive systems. So, terms like poonky or sasan where used to describe a girl’s virgina and piggy or cocolokes was used for the boys. Unfortunately for me I was not taught this.

My father always taught me to call my privates by their proper terms, i.e. the virgina for a girl and a penis for a boy. Now children can’t know anything other than what they are taught, so when my mother sent my siblings and I to have our baths she shouted out to us that we should all remember to wash our poonkies and piggies well.

I, not knowing any different immediately said, “It’s not poonky it’s virgina and penis not piggy.” Till this day, I can still hear my brother Jerome’s voice screaming out to mom that I was talking about rudeness in the bathroom. When my mother heard the reply, she got extremely angry with me and told me not to bring rudeness into her house.

I was so confused that I just sat there with my jaw dropped. Jerome stood laughing at me. After we had our bath, mom beckoned me to sit with her

Sheer Confusion

I was now with my mom, her big belly east Indian man and siblings for about two or three days, when my mom called me to where she was sitting.

“Crystal? Do you know how much I love you?” mummy asked while looking me in the eyes. Right there and then I felt me heart melt for the strange woman I knew to be my mom.

What came next was the most confusing experience. My mother started telling me that the man that I had known as “daddy” all my life was the first and only person to tell her to ” get rid of IT. ”

Mom did admit that she did try about twice, but not because she wanted to, but because she was in love with my father and she didn’t want him to leave because of the pregnancy after he told her wasn’t ready for a child.

She then proceeded to mention, saying the man that I knew since I had known myself wasn’t even my father. She and dad had gotten into an argument before she even knew that I was in her womb, and had intercourse with another man.

I was told me how awful my father was to her and how he was never faithful to her and how much he had hurt her. Being too young to know or much less understand what she was saying to me, I just sat there looking at her bewildered.

How I Got My Phobias

It was about a week of being there with my mom and siblings, and I never sat down in front of a television to take in any of my favorites, because I was too busy playing all day with my bothers and sister.

Now, we where having the time of our lives we also didn’t have a television to watch. Usually, mom took my brothers and sister to the neighbors at night to watch at least two movies.

The movie choice was not child friendly. The first started with sunshine and trees and a very large spider.

Some soldiers traveled to the Amazon for something which I can’t remember. The MD that was with them had just discovered a new species of Tarantula and was so fascinated that he place the spider to a bottle that he didn’t cover properly and to no surprise the arachnid got out, crawled into his sleeping bag, bit and killed him.

Unknowingly to the soldiers exactly what had happened to the man they placed him into a wooden pine box, big fat and juicy while the itsy bitsy spider crawled into the box before it was closed up.

How many ever thousands of miles back to a small American town, where they carried the body of the spider bite victim to be buried. They opened the box and unseen by all in the room the spider just crawled back out of the box and the body was now drained of every last drop of blood.

Then the spider went on to mate with a normal brown house spider, creating an all new species. While these venomous spiders wreaked havoc on the simple town’s people, biting any and every thing or person they came across, my heart felt as though it would just come out through my mouth.

Then to add insult to injury, when the movie about the MAN eating spiders where finally over, the lady removed the VHS tape replacing it with another. The name of this one was Nightmare On Elm Street. For many years I called that movie Freddy Kroger, because that was all I could have thought of every time I was caught alone in the dark.

After watching these two movies phobias of the dark and arachnids began. Till this day I still hate to sleep in complete darkness and even though I’ve bought myself to the point where a little spider can crawl on me without me swatting it, I still can not see or encounter a big, hairy tarantula without feeling my every hair stand on end and my heart make a try to jump straight my chest.

Till We Meet Agian

This has been quite a journey for these past few months. From being in an abusive relationship for the better part of two years, registering with WA, starting my very own website, to leaving a controlling, vindictive and dictating 45 year old BOY, to do a job that I hate with a passion, to meeting the man of my dreams and being too scared to let down all my guards to allow him all the way in.

Things are not always at it seems, to the persons looking in on the situation. All I can say, is that it’s been just that, “A JOURNEY.” A journey of revealing wolves in sheep’s clothing and monster not under my bed but right next to me in it. Knowing that I have been and still can be a great mom, to a child that didn’t even come out of me.

Over the years I have loved, lost and learned that life is and never will be fear, but what the best any of us can do is to make the best of what ever life throws at us. Children are precious and fragile gems that we should never ever take for granted. People that grow up having issues of mental and personality disorders are most time the product of growing up in an abusive environment or have been around people that was never fit to take care of anyone.

I earge parents, guardians and care givers, to be mindful of everything you do or say to or in the presence of a young child, for you can and will be the perpetrator that ruins the life of that child.