It was a cold autumn morning, I noticed that there wasn’t that usual smile on my mummy’s face, on this particular day. She moved slower than usual and didn’t take me to the park to play as she would usually do. On those days at the park, she would sit with me cuddled up in her lap, with my head resting on her chest, and she would sing. I always knew when she was happy, by the choice of her songs. I loved it when the sound of her voice vibrated in her chest and into my ear pressed against her beating heart.
Today, it was obvious, we weren’t going out. I noticed that I was the only one eating, my mummy wasn’t eating, she gave me all the food and she refused to eat the pieces of food that I stretched out to put in her mouth. I guess it was because my hand was too small; but that was as much as I could manage to feed her, but she refused to be fed.
She had now scraped the last bit of food together, and as she fed me, there was a very sad look in her eyes and hot tears rolled down her cheek, and dropped on my face. I touched her cheek I wanted to let her know that I understood. It was a cold Friday night and she held me close. I could still feel my tummy rumble but I knew my mummy would get something for us to eat, hopefully.
I could hear mummy, she started to sing my favorite song, it wasn’t a very happy song but I loved it, her voice was so peaceful. I started to drift off even with the rumble in my tummy. I noticed that the sound of her voice got weaker and weaker. Her heartbeat against my ear was faint. I managed to fall asleep as I held her tighter.
I woke up on Saturday morning, but I noticed that I was colder than usual; I started to cry as the first thing I felt was a sting in my tummy. I have never had that sting since we started our long journey that ended on the boat that brought us to the United Kingdom.
It all started in a different place, where all the people I around me had brown faces, like my mother’s. My parents were always raising their voices, especially my father. He would always beat my mother up too, they were not happy together. I observed that most of the arguments they had had something to do with me, because they kept on pointing at me. I was right there and wanted to respond each time but was afraid because they were engulfed in a rage. Many times, my mother got beaten to a pulp by my father, one time, after he was done beating her, there was ‘red liquid’ coming out of her nose and left eye. All I could do was pick up a piece of cloth to wipe her face while she sobbed. I wished I could protect her, or take her to a safe place. On more than one occasion, she screamed so loud that our neighbours would rush in to the house to her rescue, often pleading with my father to stop hitting her. A few weeks ago, I remember her packing up our clothes into a bag, when my father had gone out drinking, and leaving to my grandparent’s house. Every time we left the house, my father always came after my mother and dragged her back to the house and the beatings would be even worse.
One morning, I heard my mother groaning and sobbing, and I slowly opened the door…
to be continued in the next edition