Hello dear reader, be at peace.
Today I've been looking back at my week. On one side, my Huffy Beach Cruiser bike was stolen, but on the other side an old friend from my past contacted me through Facebook and wants to meet me.
The bike was no big deal, it was something material that in time can be replaced; I hope it is put to good use. Meeting someone I haven't seen in 15 years, makes me nervous; a little afraid even. But there must be a reason God allowed her to find me.
So, back to the drug deal. Yeah, so there I was, scared out of my mind; frozen in the car hoping nothing goes wrong. Fortunately the deal was done quickly without the need for bullets to go through me. We then were on the move.
It took maybe an hour before I was told to get out of the car. One of the smugglers was talking to someone, and then both walked over to me. In Spanish the stranger said "Your grandmother sent me to get you.". It made sense, she did not belong here, dealing with dangerous criminals in the middle of the night. Sending a man was logical, and without a doubt I followed the man to his car.
I was safe, out of the reach of the smugglers and on my way to Chila, or so I thought. While driving, the man informed me that she was in New York and we were in California. She was on the other side of the country!
To say I was surprised would be an understatement. I knew she lived in NY but had no idea where that was until he explained it. The man was informative but serious. His spanish sounded weird, but I could understand it clearly as he did mine. He explained that it was through her local church that she had sent the money to him, to hand over to the smugglers.
Still confused I asked him when she would arrive, and his response was unexpected. She was not coming for me, she had no money left to travel and could not afford to miss work. A bit of panic crawled through me.
Questions flied through my mind. How could I get to a place so far without money? could I walk there? can I sneak onto a bus as I could in Peru? What if she doesn't want me?
Maybe he could see my reaction, because he said they would help me. When I asked what he meant by "they" he said "my family". Still a bit confused I just nodded and said "thank you". After a while we arrived at his home, he gave me a blanket and told me to sleep on the sofa.
I fell asleep fast, I was tired. In the morning the house looked like a palace. So nice, as if out of a movie. I could hear voices so I got up and followed the sound. Entering the kitchen I found the stranger, who bid me good morning and introduced his family.
Sitting around a table with him was his wife, young son (he must've been 12yrs old) and daughter who was rather attractive (she appeared to be around 15-16 years old). To be honest, they were polite, but I could sense they were not thrilled to have me there. I can't blame them. Chila had only 2 weeks to come up with a large amount of money, and then work out a way to get it to CA and get me to a safe place.
I still have no idea how she pulled it off in such a short period of time. No, that is not true. I do have an idea. She was a kind woman, always willing to help others. It was her good heart that would win the respect of others, and that probably was how she did it. Those who appreciated and respected her must have helped her.
I no longer remember the names of the people that hosted me; they gave me some clothes and fed me while I was with them. On the morning of the third day I was told that I needed to work so I could save money. It was explained to me that if I wanted to get to my grandmother as fast as possible, that I needed $300 for a plane ticket.
Back in the late 80's there was no Homeland Security, pretty much anyone could get on a plane within the states and go to any state with a ticket. I was told that the best way to get work was to stand at a certain corner early in the morning (so early that the sun didn't even seem to be out) near a Home Depot. Cheap labor. It worked.
The first thing I learned how to shout was "pick me!"; because every time there would be at least 30 undocumented people hoping to get work. On bad days, I made $3 an hour, on good days $5 an hour. Some work was easy, some was extremely strenuous and even painful.
I was so determined to get to Chila, that I had the $300 within two weeks. I wish I could remember the family that hosted me back then. 29 years have gone by; I hope god rewarded them for what they did for my grandma.
In what seemed to be the blink of an eye, I went from leaving a port accompanied by smugglers to boarding a plane to NY. Even though I was 18 years old I couldn't stop the fear of the plane crashing when it took off. I had a window seat which made it a bit harder to deal it.
My fingers became claws, holding on to the arms of my seat for dear life. My face was tense, I could barely breathe. It didn't take long for the plane to straighten up, allowing me to relax and thank God for it.
I greatly enjoyed the view from my window during the flight. When I was younger I had flown to and from Germany, but I could not recall either flight. I went through the same panic when the plane landed in NY at night.
When I arrived at La Guardia airport; Chila was there waiting for me, with her sister's son Javier. I was happy to see her, after all the years we had been apart. Grandma cried, telling me how happy she felt to see me again.
Xavier (one of her sister's son) drove us to Brooklyn; where grandma lived with her sister and her two sons. I slept on the sofa, which would be my place to sleep for a few months while I adapted to american life.
Those were easy days, a time I wish I had spent doing more productive things. At the time I had very little ambition. After all, I had dodged the bullet, literally. I was so happy to be alive and out of danger that I cared little about my future.
I was far from stupid, but neither was I wise or careful. I was selfish, careless and even felt entitled. My resentment for my mother, my hatred for Manolo and my mixed emotions for my half-brother probably were the cause of it.
It's late, time to call it a day. Until next time dear reader.
May you walk in the light of God.
Sincerely.
Luis
Showing posts with label Family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Family. Show all posts
Friday, October 28, 2016
Friday, October 21, 2016
My secret revealed
Good day dear reader, I hope you are having a great day.
Today I will reveal how my childhood turned into a nightmare. It is something I've only told a handful of people. My wife knew, and for some reason, still loved me.
Here goes.
After my grandma left Peru, mother took over running the building. I never met the owner; apparently grandma had made some deal with the person decades ago in writing, which limited how much he could raise the price of leasing the building which my family in turn rented out.
I knew from conversations I overheard that the owner tried to force us out legally, but the contract must have been so well done that he just couldn't.
One of the renters was a nice man, Mr. Larrea. He was always kind to me, giving me advice, and candy. He had a niece, who became my first crush. To this day I remember her name. Lina. She was beautiful, a few years older than me and I was in love with her even before I knew what the word meant.
Without my grandma around, mother felt free to do things which probably wouldn't have met Chila's approval. She opened up a small business right in front of our home. She sold jewelry that she made herself and women clothes that she bought wholesale.
She started with a table, then moved onto a nice glass display on wheels which I helped her carry back upstairs. Our front door lead straight to stairs going to the second floor of the building, because the ground floor was taken by a shoe store that paid us rent.
Mother would go out often at night, but always spent time with me during the day, helping me with homework and making me part of her business downstairs as her "little helper".
She didn't bring men home, until one day she introduced me to a "friend" of hers. His name was Manuel.
It was obvious that he was less sophisticated than my mother, but I didn't care because he seemed like a nice man. Within a few months, I saw him as a father figure. He would take me to the movies, give me money for the local arcade and gave me the attention I wanted from a father. All three of us would go out to eat every week like a family.
I never heard him talk about what he did for a living, but mother always said he was a hard worker. Little did she know that she had invited a predator into our home.
One day mother told me she needed to be away for a few days and that Manuel would take care of me. She trusted him, I trusted him. There was no way for her to know that my life would change because of that act of trust.
The first night she was gone we watched TV in the living room until late at night, which wasn't out of the ordinary. I was tired and wanted to go to bed. He told me to stay on the sofa and turned off the lights. He then said that sometimes good friends sleep together. He asked me if we were friends and innocently I said "yes".
In the darkness he stripped me of my clothes, I thought he was helping me get into my pajamas. He then moved me to lay down next to him. He was naked and I could feel him laying behind me. I was confused, because nobody had ever told me that something like that was wrong.
He moved my hand and placed it on his privates. I didn't know what to do. I thought he was going to become my father, I feared that if I didn't do what he said my mother may become angry at me for disobeying,
That was the first night he sexually abused me. I don't want to go into great detail, it has taken me decades to forcefully push the memories down into a locked room in my mind.
The two days my mother was gone, was just the beginning. He would molest me at every chance we were alone or out of sight of others. This went on for months.
Eventually my mother noticed that my behavior was changing. I was easily startled, afraid of the dark to the point I always wanted a light on in my room; even when going to sleep.
One night she sat me down in her bedroom and I don't even remember what she said. But sometime during our chat I must have given her enough information for her to figure things out. I do remember her face, she was shocked, and angry.
For a moment I thought she was angry at me and perhaps she could see my fear because she hugged me tight and spoke softly. The words she used still escape me, but whatever she said made me feel at ease.
She told me not to move, and then left the room furious. Next thing I hear my mother screaming, cursing and I had to get up and look at what was going on. I saw my mother attacking Manuel, punching him and calling him names, telling him to leave, that she was going to kill him.
He only put his hands up defensively, fortunately he didn't fight back. Renters started to come out of their rooms due to the ruckus. Manuel was smart enough to know that if the men in the building heard what he had done, they would probably kill him, It was Peru after all. He left quickly.
I could hear the neighbors ask her if she was alright, and what had happened. She just told them that she had broken up with her boyfriend and that he didn't want to leave.
Apparently the truth was too embarrassing for her. No police was ever called. Not that day, or any other day. All she could say was that she was sorry. Not too long after she hired a female psychiatrist which to be honest, didn't make me feel any better.
The woman would mostly ask me for details of the abuse, how he did this and that. I hated her for doing that, and started to hate my mother for making me go through it in my head again with someone I considered a stranger. I did learn that what had happened to me was very very bad. Realizing that I had been abused gave birth to a hatred that was quite alive until just a few years ago.
She kept me out of school for a few weeks, spent time with me, buying me new clothes and toys as if that could fix anything. However as weeks passed by, I saw the sadness she carried. Slowly I started to get closer to her again. A sense of normality started to form. It didn't last long.
Two months after the night she had kicked out the man who had raped me, we had a conversation that numbed me. She was pregnant with Manuel's child, I was going to be a big brother. Her religion prohibited her from not having it. Then she told me I needed to forget what had happened to me, because her child needed to have a father.
I did as I was told. I had to pretend in front of everyone that he was a good man. At the time my mother was smart enough to distract me with the pregnancy, because I had always wanted to have more siblings.
Fortunately Manuel was never allowed to be alone with me or to move back in.
My feelings were a storm of fear, anger, sadness, disgust and shame.
I can't continue typing right now, I'll try to continue in a few days.
May you walk in the light of God.
Sincerely.
Luis
Today I will reveal how my childhood turned into a nightmare. It is something I've only told a handful of people. My wife knew, and for some reason, still loved me.
Here goes.
After my grandma left Peru, mother took over running the building. I never met the owner; apparently grandma had made some deal with the person decades ago in writing, which limited how much he could raise the price of leasing the building which my family in turn rented out.
I knew from conversations I overheard that the owner tried to force us out legally, but the contract must have been so well done that he just couldn't.
One of the renters was a nice man, Mr. Larrea. He was always kind to me, giving me advice, and candy. He had a niece, who became my first crush. To this day I remember her name. Lina. She was beautiful, a few years older than me and I was in love with her even before I knew what the word meant.
Without my grandma around, mother felt free to do things which probably wouldn't have met Chila's approval. She opened up a small business right in front of our home. She sold jewelry that she made herself and women clothes that she bought wholesale.
She started with a table, then moved onto a nice glass display on wheels which I helped her carry back upstairs. Our front door lead straight to stairs going to the second floor of the building, because the ground floor was taken by a shoe store that paid us rent.
Mother would go out often at night, but always spent time with me during the day, helping me with homework and making me part of her business downstairs as her "little helper".
She didn't bring men home, until one day she introduced me to a "friend" of hers. His name was Manuel.
It was obvious that he was less sophisticated than my mother, but I didn't care because he seemed like a nice man. Within a few months, I saw him as a father figure. He would take me to the movies, give me money for the local arcade and gave me the attention I wanted from a father. All three of us would go out to eat every week like a family.
I never heard him talk about what he did for a living, but mother always said he was a hard worker. Little did she know that she had invited a predator into our home.
One day mother told me she needed to be away for a few days and that Manuel would take care of me. She trusted him, I trusted him. There was no way for her to know that my life would change because of that act of trust.
The first night she was gone we watched TV in the living room until late at night, which wasn't out of the ordinary. I was tired and wanted to go to bed. He told me to stay on the sofa and turned off the lights. He then said that sometimes good friends sleep together. He asked me if we were friends and innocently I said "yes".
In the darkness he stripped me of my clothes, I thought he was helping me get into my pajamas. He then moved me to lay down next to him. He was naked and I could feel him laying behind me. I was confused, because nobody had ever told me that something like that was wrong.
He moved my hand and placed it on his privates. I didn't know what to do. I thought he was going to become my father, I feared that if I didn't do what he said my mother may become angry at me for disobeying,
That was the first night he sexually abused me. I don't want to go into great detail, it has taken me decades to forcefully push the memories down into a locked room in my mind.
The two days my mother was gone, was just the beginning. He would molest me at every chance we were alone or out of sight of others. This went on for months.
Eventually my mother noticed that my behavior was changing. I was easily startled, afraid of the dark to the point I always wanted a light on in my room; even when going to sleep.
One night she sat me down in her bedroom and I don't even remember what she said. But sometime during our chat I must have given her enough information for her to figure things out. I do remember her face, she was shocked, and angry.
For a moment I thought she was angry at me and perhaps she could see my fear because she hugged me tight and spoke softly. The words she used still escape me, but whatever she said made me feel at ease.
She told me not to move, and then left the room furious. Next thing I hear my mother screaming, cursing and I had to get up and look at what was going on. I saw my mother attacking Manuel, punching him and calling him names, telling him to leave, that she was going to kill him.
He only put his hands up defensively, fortunately he didn't fight back. Renters started to come out of their rooms due to the ruckus. Manuel was smart enough to know that if the men in the building heard what he had done, they would probably kill him, It was Peru after all. He left quickly.
I could hear the neighbors ask her if she was alright, and what had happened. She just told them that she had broken up with her boyfriend and that he didn't want to leave.
Apparently the truth was too embarrassing for her. No police was ever called. Not that day, or any other day. All she could say was that she was sorry. Not too long after she hired a female psychiatrist which to be honest, didn't make me feel any better.
The woman would mostly ask me for details of the abuse, how he did this and that. I hated her for doing that, and started to hate my mother for making me go through it in my head again with someone I considered a stranger. I did learn that what had happened to me was very very bad. Realizing that I had been abused gave birth to a hatred that was quite alive until just a few years ago.
She kept me out of school for a few weeks, spent time with me, buying me new clothes and toys as if that could fix anything. However as weeks passed by, I saw the sadness she carried. Slowly I started to get closer to her again. A sense of normality started to form. It didn't last long.
Two months after the night she had kicked out the man who had raped me, we had a conversation that numbed me. She was pregnant with Manuel's child, I was going to be a big brother. Her religion prohibited her from not having it. Then she told me I needed to forget what had happened to me, because her child needed to have a father.
I did as I was told. I had to pretend in front of everyone that he was a good man. At the time my mother was smart enough to distract me with the pregnancy, because I had always wanted to have more siblings.
Fortunately Manuel was never allowed to be alone with me or to move back in.
My feelings were a storm of fear, anger, sadness, disgust and shame.
I can't continue typing right now, I'll try to continue in a few days.
May you walk in the light of God.
Sincerely.
Luis
Thursday, September 29, 2016
In the beginning...
Hello dear reader, how are you today? I hope you had a wonderful day by the grace of god.
Where should I start? I guess, at the beginning.
Do I remember my childhood? barely. Was it so bad that I blocked it all? No. Well, the good parts I remember I guess.
I was born in August of 1969 in the country of Peru (south america). I don't remember my father leaving me and my mother, all I knew was that I had a mother and no father. I think I was 5 years old, old enough to understand what it meant when she explained it to me, that he had left us but that it was not my fault. It wasn't until years later after we returned from Germany that I found out he had left us for his mistress.
Germany... good memories there. I don't remember even the face of the man my mother fell in love with, but I remember how we left Peru with my grandmother crying at the airport the day we left for Europe. I believe I was about 7 years old.
It didn't take long for things to change, the kind German turned into a monster. I can still remember how badly he had treated her. I could hear the screams and how he abused her verbally and physically. I hated him, wanting him to disappear, It went on for a few months, until one night mother packed our things and we left to live with a girlfriend of hers, I think they were coworkers.
Mother worked at a hospital, I'm pretty sure she was a nurse and the way her friend treated me with kindness and always with a smile. I thought that she had to also be a nurse.
It did not take long for her to divorce, even tho she never mentioned the word, only that we would never be with that bad man again.
A few weeks went by before we moved into a small apartment in a tall building (at least it looked tall from the outside). I'm certain we lived in Hamburg.
There is where I met my friend Mike. I don't even know how to pronounce his name properly, decades have passed since then. Probably his full name was Michael, and his last name sounded like Lepa or something like it.
He was a blond kid, a bit older than me. Son of a woman that lived downstairs from us, we played ball, rode our bikes in the neighborhood and played with our toys every day. It was the most innocent and wonderful part of my childhood, something I held on to for many years, and still recall on occasion with fondness.
Every weekend or so mother would take me with her down to the local laundromat where I would run around (because I didn't listen to mother, like most kids do at that age) while she was taking care of our clothes. One weekend, I ran straight into the door handle of one of the washers. Next thing all I saw was red and hearing my mother screaming frantically.
I remember being in an ambulance, then waking up in a hospital bed with bandages over my left eye. My mother was sitting on a chair next to the bed. She told me I was lucky that I still had an eye, that the German doctors had saved me from being half blind.
To be honest, at the time I didn't understand it all. It took many years until I could understand how badly I had injured myself. Today I can feel the bone under my left eye, pushed in as if someone had hammered part of it.
A few weeks went by and everything went back to normal, back to school, back to playing with my best friend Mike, back to being a careless kid again. My mother did become a bit more protective then.
I wonder sometimes what I would've become had we stayed there. Until next time dear reader, I will write my next letter as soon as I can.
May you walk in the light of God.
Sincerely.
Luis
Where should I start? I guess, at the beginning.
Do I remember my childhood? barely. Was it so bad that I blocked it all? No. Well, the good parts I remember I guess.
I was born in August of 1969 in the country of Peru (south america). I don't remember my father leaving me and my mother, all I knew was that I had a mother and no father. I think I was 5 years old, old enough to understand what it meant when she explained it to me, that he had left us but that it was not my fault. It wasn't until years later after we returned from Germany that I found out he had left us for his mistress.
Germany... good memories there. I don't remember even the face of the man my mother fell in love with, but I remember how we left Peru with my grandmother crying at the airport the day we left for Europe. I believe I was about 7 years old.
It didn't take long for things to change, the kind German turned into a monster. I can still remember how badly he had treated her. I could hear the screams and how he abused her verbally and physically. I hated him, wanting him to disappear, It went on for a few months, until one night mother packed our things and we left to live with a girlfriend of hers, I think they were coworkers.
Mother worked at a hospital, I'm pretty sure she was a nurse and the way her friend treated me with kindness and always with a smile. I thought that she had to also be a nurse.
It did not take long for her to divorce, even tho she never mentioned the word, only that we would never be with that bad man again.
A few weeks went by before we moved into a small apartment in a tall building (at least it looked tall from the outside). I'm certain we lived in Hamburg.
There is where I met my friend Mike. I don't even know how to pronounce his name properly, decades have passed since then. Probably his full name was Michael, and his last name sounded like Lepa or something like it.
He was a blond kid, a bit older than me. Son of a woman that lived downstairs from us, we played ball, rode our bikes in the neighborhood and played with our toys every day. It was the most innocent and wonderful part of my childhood, something I held on to for many years, and still recall on occasion with fondness.
Every weekend or so mother would take me with her down to the local laundromat where I would run around (because I didn't listen to mother, like most kids do at that age) while she was taking care of our clothes. One weekend, I ran straight into the door handle of one of the washers. Next thing all I saw was red and hearing my mother screaming frantically.
I remember being in an ambulance, then waking up in a hospital bed with bandages over my left eye. My mother was sitting on a chair next to the bed. She told me I was lucky that I still had an eye, that the German doctors had saved me from being half blind.
To be honest, at the time I didn't understand it all. It took many years until I could understand how badly I had injured myself. Today I can feel the bone under my left eye, pushed in as if someone had hammered part of it.
A few weeks went by and everything went back to normal, back to school, back to playing with my best friend Mike, back to being a careless kid again. My mother did become a bit more protective then.
I wonder sometimes what I would've become had we stayed there. Until next time dear reader, I will write my next letter as soon as I can.
May you walk in the light of God.
Sincerely.
Luis
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