The day it all changed

I was too young to remember the exact date or time. But I remember the scene like it happened yesterday – the scalding news burned into my memory forever.

I

t was a sweltering hot day. The heat clung to our bodies like sweet, sticky syrup. We sat in the faded dark blue Volkswagen Beetle with two open doors. The mottled shade of the acacia tree draped over the car like an umbrella did not help to cool anything down. The cicadas were screeching their agonizingly piercing song.

We sat in the mottled shade of the giant acacia tree in the faded dark blue Volkswagen Beetle with the doors wide open and the cicadas screeching in utter agony. My security blanket was about to be burned to ashes, and my sense of feeling loved, safe, and secure was about to be scarred.

My grandmother told me that she and my grandfather had only “looked after me” while my mother had gone to work in Germany. My “real” mother would take me back whenever she could look after me.

The cicadas continued to screech in their high-pitched tone as if someone was ripping their wings from their bodies. My heart was being ripped from my soul.

My grandmother tried to soften the news by telling me that the two people I had known as “Mamma” and “Pappa” were actually my grandparents. She told me that my “siblings” were my two aunts and uncle and that I would always be loved by all.  As if this love would mend my heart, which lay in shreds on the drought-stricken earth of the farm. 

Little did she know that this love, so vociferously declared by everyone around me for a large part of my life, would become a lifelong burden. This love would wedge guilt feelings between every relationship. 

My family would abuse this love to soothe their conscience, explain their decisions, and excuse their behavior. This love would be used to manipulate me, and guilt trip me into giving up my identity, into serving them and serving others. This love would rip away my freedom of thought, of being me. This love would become the plaster and bricks I used to build walls around me. This love would smother me.

I can still feel the cold terror gripping my tiny heart. I can smell the absolute fear that invaded my being – the sudden, intense loss of love and security that overcame me. 

I still feel the cold sweat running down my back as I stand alone on this sweltering, sticky day. And I can still hear the cicadas screeching in sympathy for my loss. I cried bitterly, and my heart felt like breaking in two. I could barely breathe from the pain in my chest.

I wrestled myself loose from her embrace. The same embrace that had previously made me feel warm and safe. I  ran to the farmhouse, to my bed, to safety. The cicadas suddenly stopped screeching, and all became quiet, deathly quiet. I was alone in a world filled with loneliness. My safety net was ripped apart by adults thinking they knew best.

My journey of surviving in a world where I did not belong to anyone started in the quiet, hot air of my grandparent’s farm in arid Namibia in a faded blue Volkswagen Beetle under an acacia tree on that particular day.

I must have been almost five. My grandmother made this calculated announcement as she knew my mother was about to return from Germany. She had no idea what my mother’s plans would be – whether she would want to take me back as her own. And so, she wanted to make sure that I knew who my mother was. She tried to prepare me for the inevitable. In the process, she broke my heart, ripped my safety net to pieces, and laid the foundations for the strong brick walls I would start to build that day.

My life would be spent choosing between hiding behind these walls for safety or breaking them down to survive and build a home where I belong. I’m still building. And breaking down.

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