I
remember contemplating her on TV commercials, and once I saw her in person at
some beach party. She exuded wealth and looked uptight, which is expected from an
indigene of the elite class of Luanda. He used to tell me that I resemble her.
So whenever I watched her interviews, I would ideate about her, trying to spot
the so-called resemblance.
She
seemed worried, hence she pleaded, “He needs you. He is not ok.” She said his
name but I am choosing not to mention it. I was confused by the message within
the dream, though I knew something was wrong. When I woke up, I saw a missed
call from my sister and before I could call her back, she shocked me with the
news “His mother is dead.” Then she sent another message, mentioning her name, which
would be anticipated since her name is so renowned. Yet she knew the only
reason that the news would break me was because she was his mother.
The
mother of the man who crushed my spirit was dead. Now the dream was becoming
clearer; all making sense. The deceased appeared in my dream, telling me that
her son was suffering since she was no longer there. I didn’t understand why
the universe expected me to offer him some comfort. Why me? I had never met that
woman in my life. I was never introduced to her nor was I qualified to be
called a ‘girlfriend’ to her son. I was just someone whom he spent nights with
when we were in college. And at that time there were so many stringent conditions
for one to become a girlfriend, and I definitely didn’t meet any of those
requirements.
When I
told my sister about the dream, I could sense that she didn’t believe me. It’s
okay! Being the fanciful person that I am, it is not a surprise that others usually
question my stories. I couldn’t make this story up - it actually gave me
chills. I was scared to find out that my intuition was so accurate and
powerful. I have witnessed the power of my intuition before. At one time when a
stranger sexually assaulted me while I was sleeping. I dreamed about it and I was
able to wake up, making him stop. Though, it wasn’t a full attempt, it was just
half stuprum. On the contrary, the
person in question, he ravished me entirely, he destroyed me... Worse still, it
wasn’t a simple carnal abuse, it was a ‘fancy’ one. A ‘fancy’ sexual offense is
being spelled by rich folks, and it implies that I should forgive his aberrant
and cannibal behavior because his mother was a well-known business woman in
Angola.
My sister
asked me if I was going to visit him to offer my condolences, and I told her
adamantly that I wasn’t. I lied. My sister was the rapporteur on telling me
every disgusting thing he constantly displayed anent our relationship, so I was
ashamed to show her that I still cared for him. I rushed to the internet and
googled ‘how can I feel empathy for my culprit’ and the word ‘forgiveness’ kept
popping up.
My
intuition challenged me to go. I got there dutifully and could sense that
people were looking at me. I felt embarrassed and didn’t want to be there
anymore. People tend to appreciate or praise cold human beings and not those
who are forgiving. I had this nagging feeling inside me that others were
actually wondering ‘after all this guy did to her, she is still so stupid to
come here?’ And to think that they didn’t know about the illicit incident, only
his unwarranted acts, how he was trifled with me; how he threw me out of his
house several times; how he made salacious gestures to my body in front of his
friends; etc. The adverb ‘etc’ applied so well in this sentence… there is so
much I could include from that unhealthy realm.
I didn’t intend
to greet him, I simply wanted him to see that I was there. His cousin decided
to call him to come and greet me. He came smiling, not a genuine smile, a cocky
one… the kind of smile that says he was entitled to my servitude. He greeted me
gleefully. I was so tethered to him; I could not move. Whereas, he looked
unflappable, we even joked around. He didn’t change a bit - he was still the
same lothario who made me wish to have a vasectomy on my heart. Looking at him
all the hate was gone, I instantly became Hancock
- losing power when my lover is around.
I was
back being that girl, the girl who would constantly appease him, like all these
years of being mistreated by others wasn’t strong or traumatizing enough. My
original and main trauma was here. He didn’t look penitent, not even when his
world was falling apart. He offered to escort me to where his brother was. We
started walking, and suddenly he starts walking faster than me as if he didn’t
want to be seen with me. I patiently took another humiliation and it was fine
with me as I learned long ago that I wasn’t men’s favourite person to be seen
with.
After
greeting and showing support to his brother, I left. This whole encounter took
me back ten years ago when I was only a credulous girl who fell in love with
someone. It is hard to interpret what happened, how I became so involved in
this. I don’t really know considering I was not happy while I was around him. I
wasn’t attracted to him and I didn’t feel pleasure while we were intimate but
something pulled me towards that man, like he was Thanos. It always felt as it was meant to be, not the kind of
‘meant to be’ akin true love from a fairy tale movie, but as something that I
had to go through, like the heavens preached ‘this man is going to put you
through hell, and you need to take it’. And I did.
I started
crying after I left. I felt hollow. I knew even though he acted normal, he was literally
dying inside. His mom was the most precious person to him. He didn’t have a
heart but his love for his mother was unconditional. A few days later, a funeral
service was held for her. I got ready to go; when I was about to leave the
house I felt an acute toothache. The pain was so sharp and strong that it
prevented me from leaving the house. I decided to rest but I couldn’t stop
thinking about what he was going through.
At that
moment, I figured that attending the funeral service was ‘forgiveness’ while absconding was ‘retribution’. What was the point of me
going there to show my condolences the other day and not showing up on the day
of the climax of the pain? Was my toothache that excruciating? Was I pretending
that I was not fit to go? Was it possible that in my pained and sick mind I didn’t
desire to be there for him because of everything he had done to me? I was
haggling my feelings…
I forgave
him long time ago, especially when I learned that karma is never direct. You
can’t do something to a person and expect that person to learn the lesson from
you. They will eventually get it but you are not in command. Retribution is not
a matter of making you happy; it’s about being fair – it’s the judge of our
actions. Then again, was being violated a punishment for what I did to someone?
Did I ever do something that bad? Maybe it was the pandemic of all the mean
things I had said to people - how I told my cousin that her baby looked just
like her, because he was ugly. Or how I made a joke regarding my aunt not
having kids and being single at the age of 50, and how I bullied others all my
life. If being ‘deflowered’ was my fate and a rooted retribution for those
episodes, I deserved it. And I ante for all my future crimes.
Still, he
didn’t deserve this, not at all. Having his best friend join us in bed while I
was under the influence, and relatively unconscious, wasn’t enough reason for
him to endure this loss. I can’t determine what the ultimate punishment for a
rapist is but there is no such a thing as a balanced retribution, since pain isn’t
measurable. Though, I doubt if it would cure me or make me sane. No matter how
much I wish evil upon him, it wouldn’t give me back the joy of enjoying
intimacy and have a free mind.
I can’t lie
that it crossed my mind several times, seeing him in pain, being humiliated in
public, treated just like Quasimodo, or
anything that would make him feel miserable. I thought about that for years
until I started following up an American crime case regarding a woman who
killed her boyfriend. I can’t take the memory out of my head of random individuals
cheering outside the court because she got the death sentence. I cannot fathom
why someone would be happy with that, especially when they don’t even know the
victim. I am not exonerating this woman in any way but I don’t understand why
these wicked people seeks to be compensated for something they didn’t lose. It
was all an uncouth overdose of hatred. I can still hear their voices, smiles,
and joy, screaming “Kill her!”.
Until
today that disturbing story triggers me, it makes me assess that fatal episode
again and how I felt when it was happening. You know when you are about to
cross the road, suddenly a car comes and you freeze. That’s how I felt. I
wasn’t sure what was happening and what should I do to prevent it. My thoughts
were paralyzed. However, being plundered of my hallelujah was a trailer
compared to what is coming.
It was almost
dawn; I was leaving a night club alone because I didn’t want to wait for my
friends. I was slowly entering that phase that partying wasn’t for me anymore.
I was becoming a retired troubled girl, thinking that I was finally cured. But
I guess my fate had other plans. As I walk home, approximately 10 girls
surrounded me. Out of the blue, they started to punch, push, kick me until I
lost count. They broke my glasses, which made me not see what was happening. I
am myopic but in my memories everything was clear. They threw
me on the floor and dragged me like I was trash. It was an ensemble of hate, a scourge... When people
asked them why they treated me like an animal, they admitted “We just don’t
like the way she walks.”. Funny enough, they imperilled me until I couldn’t
walk.
That was
definitely my death penalty! Little did they know that I developed that
‘superior’ walk to embellish the shame of being brutally touched. One of the
side effects of being ‘deprived’ by the first man who ever touched me was
gaining a superiority complex. I thought my walk was preventing me from being
vulnerable and weak…a handy response to offences before they come. However,
my walk should have never been the shield, instead, forgiveness should have
been my ready-made provision to handle anything.
Am I entitled to not forgive these girls? No! Because
life expects you to forgive. People do all kinds of unspeakable things to you
and you are even obliged to forgive them. Undoubtedly,
forgiving was draining for me, it felt like I
wasn’t vindicating my feelings or honouring my pain. Still, I managed to do it
somehow, but it wasn’t organic, it was forced. So I could be deemed cured and
less bitter. I even changed my walk and everything about me, not to be guilty
of the crime of people not liking me.
I wonder
if I appear in their dreams sometimes. In fact, I wonder if I am the cause of
their depression, because they are mine. I became neurotic, I was enslaved in
my own mind. I couldn’t go to certain places, and suddenly I longed to go home.
I couldn’t grasp why I was still being dragged mentally. Isn’t forgiveness the
lack of retribution? I have never retaliated or done anything to hurt them. Rather,
I took my explicit self-experience as protection, by growing through my pain. I
discerned that our ugly experiences refine and fine-tune us to be what we
should be.
When I break
down and fail to comprehend everything again, I think about ‘When they see us’, an American TV
series about a group of black teenagers who were wrongly accused of raping a
white woman. I connected the narrative to when my friends would emulate that
act. At parties, they would pick the drunkest girl, take her to a room, and
organize themselves in a queue, where one by one, they would destroy her dreams
of having peace of mind. And they didn’t get punished, they were immune to the
sacred retribution. On the other hand, the American boys from the ‘freedom city
of New York’ were sentenced to 5-10 years in prison.
Another
scene that strikes my mind every time I watch that series is one of the young
boys at his trial going crazy. I saw myself in that scenario, those 2 minutes’
scene was 10 years of my life since the day that man ruptured my soul. Sometimes
you see someone acting folly, throwing tantrums and taking drugs, as if all
that hurt doesn’t allow them to be rational. If those kids took 5-10 years of
jail time, I definitely took 5-10 years of depression.
It was
extremely difficult to not admire retribution when everything moves around it.
You grow up raised by movies, who tell you that revenge is the panacea for
everything. So you want to be an avenger for yourself, and when you can’t, you
ask yourself ‘Why am I here?’. I am in a fix between a life of regrets and
travelling to the unknown. But, what if the afterlife is the sentence of all
‘poetic justices’ and unforgiving quagmires? I can’t give up, especially now
that I fully recognize true forgiveness.
Forgiveness
is a process, the same way it took a series of collateral episodes to destroy
me, it takes a healing trilogy or even more to resuscitate me. I also realized
that the hardest person to forgive was myself, for allowing those things to
happen to me. Sometimes I hated myself more than I despised anyone who maimed
me. When I finally forgave myself, I accepted that my retribution was my
thoughts - healthy thoughts that I turned into inspiration to write.
Picture:https://unsplash.com/s/photos/ocean
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