I know you are doing everything you can to be a good mother to me and a kind grandmother to my children. Birthday cards, gifts, phone calls to check if everything is OK if you haven’t heard from me for a while. Years and years of love and attention, and yet I can’t forgive you for hitting me when I was a child.

I was 11. During the school holidays, you had left my toddler brother and me at your mother’s so you could go to work. Our grandmother left me to look after my brother. I hated babysitting. All I wanted to do was read, read and read some more. On that summer day, in my grandparents’ garden, I was so engrossed in my book that I did not notice when my brother wandered off. My grandmother returned from her errand and her anguished voice brought me back to reality: “Where’s your brother?”

He was nowhere to be seen. It took me a while to return to the reality of my grandmother’s screams of terror. There was a road nearby. My brother might already have been run over, or abducted. I’d heard about evil men who liked to do awful things to little children.

We ran around in circles, screaming his name, rushing in and out of every room in the house, manically opening and shutting wardrobe doors, even looking in drawers. A small child can hide in anything. Our shouting got the neighbourhood dogs barking. A huge hole full of emptiness had opened up in our minds.

The pain was bad, the humiliation even worse. I didn’t deserve this. I hadn’t done it on purpose

Ten or maybe two minutes later – time had stood still – a neighbour called to us. He had found my brother, who was holding a toy I had never seen before. He had walked to the next house, found the bedroom of the young child who lived there and played happily until our neighbour’s dog alerted him that something was amiss.

My grandmother offered God the most fervent thanks I’d ever heard from her. My brother was fine, intact, unharmed, even pleased with his find of a new toy. Then I froze as the grandmotherly prayers ended with, “I’ll have to tell your mother about this.”

She told you all right. You were silent for a few seconds, you scooped up my brother and thanked your mother for the information. In the car, you told me: “You do understand that I have to punish you for this, don’t you?” Back home, you picked up a belt, wrapped it around your hand, buckle dangling, and hit me on the legs with it, again and again and again. It bit into my thighs for an eternity. The pain was bad, the humiliation even worse. I didn’t deserve this. I hadn’t done it on purpose.

You didn’t hit me in the face. Now I know that my teachers might have noticed and reported you. My long skirt would hide the bruises. And indeed, nobody did notice and I didn’t tell anyone – after all, I had been bad .

Dad was told, too, but was satisfied that I’d learned my lesson. Yes, I did learn my lesson. That it was wrong to read so intensely that the world around you disappears. That it was OK for an 11-year-old to be in charge of a toddler all afternoon. That my brother was a source of trouble, a parcel to be handed right and left to be looked after. That it was fine to take advantage of a child’s smaller size and inability to answer or fight back, as parents always knew better and it was for my own good.

I still don’t like my brother, and sometimes I think I stopped loving you that day. Shortly after this incident, I started to fantasise that you would die. You are elderly now and I should forgive you, but I can’t. Becoming a mother myself has made me realise how cowardly it is to hit a child. I try to make sense of your reaction, but that beating is seared into my memory. It won’t go away. I tried to discuss it one day, and you told me that it was so long ago, I should let it go. You wouldn’t even say sorry. Even now, you can’t see that you did something wrong.

Anonymous

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