Lost Child (PDF)

Why did I decide to tell my story? There are many reasons: too many reasons. Reasons that range from my mother being a young Black African girl forced to become a mother by a white man at the age of 15 ... to her daughter my people called a Coloured person who, when riding in a car for the first time, was so afraid of cars, saying ‘Mai tarirai miti namakore zvavakutitevera! (Mom, look, the trees and clouds are following us!)' ... to being forced to be a wife at night while playing dolly house during the day as the stepmother of three girls ... to becoming a mother herself at 16, having lived all of her life knowing that all people were equal but having no idea that there was a huge difference between rich and poor people and being made to believe that the Coloureds were above the African people and the whites were above the Coloureds AND the African people ... to being beaten for 15 years of her married life by her first husband ... to going to watch soccer sitting next to African people, which had become awkward ... to being locked up in their flat by her second husband who told her to wash her hair only once a week and not to dress smartly for work in case she attracts other men ... to marrying her third husband for security reasons ... to another husband with whom she found love for the first time in her life but had to deal with rejection from his parents to the point that she was introduced to everyone as his employee and later on as just a friend ... to never having known her father, whom she constantly searched for in order to feel whole ... to losing the one person who had been both mother and father to her ... to finally, the very worst of all, losing her firstborn at age 42 to cancer. After enduring all of the above, she didn't consider herself to be a victim and remains good friends with her first and second husbands and allows the ex-wife of her current husband to join them for braais and dinners, and she sometimes financially assists her first husband, who is now an old man. You may wonder: what madness is this? You may understand when you get to know this person while reading her story.