A life of shame and regret

Hello dear reader, I hope you had a blessed day.

It's taken me a few days to get the courage to continue recalling a most painful part of my life. I usually share the link to a new post here, but I felt so much shame that I couldn't. I will try to do it this time. I hope that people can learn from my experience, how being abused can affect a person, for years.

While mother was pregnant my behavior towards it was mixed. A part of me was happy, yet another was full of hatred. The child would be Manuel's kid, his flesh and blood. The son of the man who abused me.

Sometimes I would honestly be glad when my mother would ask me to touch her belly, to feel the baby move. But many times I would have to pretend, to act as if I was happy when all I could feel is hatred.

After he was born, mother entrusted me to help her take care of him. Back then I dropped the kid a lot, and to be honest I have no idea if it was on purpose or accidentally. What I do remember was that I felt a lot of resentment towards him.

During the pregnancy and his birth my grades dropped drastically and I started to drink in secret when I was out of the house. I didn't become a drunk, but it gave me a buzz that made me forget how miserable I felt.

I ended up being expelled out of my school, and the two schools after that. My imagination and day dreaming was partly to blame. Sometimes I would imagine being someone else, at peace, with family that truly loved me, that would protect me. Once in a while I would imagine Manuel dead at my feet. Yeah, those were dark days.

Mother eventually told me to get a job or else. So at 15 years old, without finishing what would be equivalent to high school; I got a job.

I had a friend who worked at the local Pilsen brewery that got me a job there. My task was quality control. The beers would come out on an automated line and I was to make sure no damaged or defective bottle went past my station.

The bonus was that I could drink as much beer as I wanted at work, as long as it didn't affect my performance. Everyone, even the supervisors would drink all day long. It was a great job for me at the time, every day I would leave work with a nice buzz.

Back then all my friends drank liquor and/or got high. Mother didn't know because I never invited anyone to come over. She had no idea how out of control I was when I was out of her sight.

At the time my definition of friend would be someone to drink with or get high with, or do something stupid (illegal) with. I never told any of my friends about the anger, shame and pain I carried every day.

On occasion I would see Manuel at home, playing with my half-brother. Every time I wished him to drop dead, I didn't care how it would affect his son. But I had to pretend that he was a good man, for my mother and my half-brother.

I should have told everyone what he had done, I'm certain that everyone in our building would have beaten him to a pulp, probably killed him and gotten away with it. Child molesters who get killed by a mob usually don't do time in South America, justice works like that sometimes there.

Within a few years I became reckless, but I was never caught during any of my stupid stunts. I was smart and got away with it every time. My friends encouraged me, some became accomplices.

At 18 years old I felt I could get away with anything. I was proven wrong soon after. I had crossed the wrong man, who wanted me dead and had the position and power to get away with it.

My mother found out about it, and feared for my life. She convinced some relatives to hide me, I could not be seeing in public. I spent a few weeks in the house of one of her cousins, then was moved one night to her aunt's home.

There was no way out of the situation, mother tried talking to the man I had betrayed and he told her he would shot me himself if he saw me. Realizing that I had to go somewhere, one night she sat me down at her aunt's and told me I was leaving the country.

I was surprised, since I knew we had no money to make that happen. Then she said I was going to the united states to join Chila, my grandma. I was happy but also scared. Mother told me I was going to be smuggled into a ship a night, and then I would spend two weeks at sea and then meet Chila.

What she didn't mention at the time, was that she had pretty much lied to the smugglers. Promising $2,500 dollars which we didn't have. She also didn't tell my grandma I was coming until after I had left, forcing her hand. I only found out about it later on.

Chila, didn't have that kind of money. She lived paycheck to paycheck. Chila had to borrow money from everyone she knew, asked her church for help to find someone to take me in when I arrived in California; because she lived in New York and didn't know anyone there.

As mother described, I had been smuggled onto a ship. Moved into a cabin where I was locked in, and given two meals a day. I was treated well, but more than once I had been told that if they didn't get their money, my body would never be found. I had assumed grandma had the money so I wasn't worried.

In the last day two sailors showed up and took a wall apart, and put me and two other men inside the wall. They explained that there was random checks at the port and that this was the only way to avoid being found.

All three of us were sweating for hours until finally at night they opened the wall back up. We were given clothes to make us look as we were part of the crew. Waiting until late at night we all got off the cargo ship and were told to act as if we were joking around and laugh every few minutes.

Everything went smooth, we got in two cars. I thought I was going to be dropped off, meet my grandma and be safe. Instead the cars go to a dark place in the back of some large building, meeting another pair of cars. First I was confused, then I saw one of the sailor pull packages out of the trunk.

They also had smuggled drugs. I was at a drug exchange, which if anything went wrong, I could easily get killed. So from being in danger in Peru, I went to being in danger in an entirely different country. Now I can see the humor in it, of course at the time, I didn't.

I'm a bit tired, I'll continue next time dear reader.

May you walk in the light of God.

Sincerely.

Luis

Love like no other, Grandma FTW

Hello dear reader, I hope you had a blessed day. Today I was going to share more of my childhood with you. However, to be honest, I would like to postpone talking about something that made such negative impact on my life.

Instead today I will talk about someone that loved me more than anyone in my life, my grandmother. 

Her name was Ercilia, but she was called "Chila" which was a nickname that actually came from me. Apparently when I was a toddler in Peru while I was still learning to speak, I was unable to say her name properly, thus I called her Chila. After that the nickname stuck for her entire life.

Looking back, I knew so little about her. She was born in 1929, a beauty in her youth (she showed me pictures of her when she was younger a few years before she left Peru). She would not talk about her parents to me, and very little about the man who was my grandfather, except that he had been a sailor.

She used to be the proud owner of a beauty salon in her 30's, a successful woman before she got pregnant with my mother and her brother. I have no idea what happened between that time and us living in a building we rented.

I do know that Chila hadn't approved of my mother marrying my father, or the marriage to the German. Once I remember overhearing a conversation between grandma and my mother reminding her how she warned her that she had rushed to marry a foreigner; without taking the time to know him better, just to go to Europe.

Both times Chila had been right. I suspect that she had gone though some pains of her own, with her parents and the man who was my mother's father. Grandma was a source of wisdom, but she could also be stubborn.

The woman rarely would stand down from her point of view, and everyone with an ounce of sense listened to her advice.

Here comes the part which may be weird. She was also a "Curandera", a "Healer". She was a practitioner of witchcraft, somewhat. It was a mix of christian, catholic and pagan practice. She would smoke cigars, chant, use holy water, pray to God, Jesus, some saints and read tea leaves in a cup among other things. 

She would always keep her "work" away from us, always did it privately. Her clientele were usually women, and on occasion men. I'm certain she never accepted clients that wanted her to do harm to anyone, it was not in her nature.

I remember one night during a full moon, I went to the roof and she was there with a group of women, smoking cigars. She was telling me to go back downstairs when one of the women who was probably a friend of hers said to let me stay, because there was no harm in watching.

They would exhale the smoke up, towards the sky. There was some chanting which sounded as if they were singing a beautiful song. I don't remember the words, but it was something I've never forgotten.

I was her favorite grandson, she would tell me secretly in whispers, and always asked me not to tell anyone because she did not want to hurt others feelings.

When she left Peru for the United States, I thought she was going on a plane, and just land over there and then just meet her sister. After all that is how mother and I went to another country. Get on a plane, get there, go to a new home.

I had no idea that she had come here illegally, risking her life to provide for us. That in her 50's she had crossed the border from Mexico at night, then ran through darkness following a "Coyote" (a Mexican smugger).

I only found out about it once I got here when I was 18 years old.

To be honest, I was a total asshole when I got here, with reason. I had so many damn issues, because of... well the same reason I'm writing this instead of what I was going to talk about. I had trust issues, I was full of anger, hatred, felt betrayed, guilty and so much more.

I doubt my mother ever told Chila the truth as to why I had changed, But I got a feeling that perhaps grandma must have suspected that something serious had taken place; to turn her favorite grandson, into someone totally different.

However she was the same; always kind, giving, caring. Once in a while, I think of her and I tear up. As I'm typing, it is exactly what is happening. I wish she was still alive, so I could tell her how much I truly loved her, to thank her for all the advice she gave which I foolishly ignored for so long.

I thought talking about her would be easier, but I guess I was wrong. My heart still aches for one more hug from her, another smile, just to hear her say that she loves me just one more time. I know she is forever gone, but I'm sure wherever she is, that her kind soul is free of the pain she was feeling during her last days.

I need to stop now.

May you walk in the light of God.

Sincerely.

Luis