By Yolanda Pourciau

We agreed to meet at a seafood restaurant known for its catfish and gouda grits, called Jonah’s. It was the Holiday Season, and most people were wearing their annoyingly cheerful reds and greens.  Even I, had on red.  I don’t tend to dress of the season but, I know my mom loves tradition, so I decided to conform.

When mommy finally arrived, she was looking very well for a 75-year-old woman.  She was wearing a sweater with a classy Christmas theme. Her skin flawless, body fit. These days she wears a wig.  I still haven’t gotten used to seeing her with wigs on, especially the super curly one.  She looked good. We sat and talked about the kids, and who would and would not make it for Christmas dinner. An hour or so into the conversation, the subject of my dad and domestic violence came up.

It was pretty common knowledge within the family, that mommy was a victim of domestic violence.  Mommy almost never spoke of it. Since his death, she opened a little more about the ongoing violence she survived while married to my dad.

On this day, I asked her what were some of the reasons daddy would become violent?  She said, “Yogi, I believe your dad beat me because I was weak.  He hated weak”. It felt so strange to hear her say this. I did not necessarily see my mom as weak.  I didn’t like the sound of it.   All I could say was, “Just because you were weak doesn’t give him or anybody the right to hit you” I felt a little bitterness toward him and sickness in my belly.

I survived that part of the conversation, barely, only to have our talk turn toward a story I’d never heard before.  We were on the topic of how no matter what, my father could not get my sister to give him any special treatment as we became adults. Even though my father had been abusive to us all, both I and my brother went out of our way to get to know him or otherwise accommodate him as adults- invite him to events, to our homes, etc. Not once, had he received an invitation from my sister. As mommy reflected on this she said, “it’s been that way. When yaw was little, your daddy wanted you off the bottle and pamper at one year old.  After your one-year birthday, he took your pampers. If you wet or messed up your pants, he spanked you.  Spanked you when you cried for the bottle.”  She said, “this worked with you and your brother but not your sister.”

My chest immediately began to ache. My hearing became fuzzy. I couldn’t focus. The new information wanted to be processed. I could not process in front of mommy, with mommy.  I had the thought, Bitch he beat us at one-year-old cause yo ass was so weak.  Then I thought, no he beat us because he was weak.  WTF. I could not look at mommy.  I didn’t want her to know that this story had deeply disturbed me.  So, as usual, I played it off, mostly.  I think I did say, “damn”.  I had processed assaults by my father.  Which is not easy given I live in a culture that condones so much violence in the home, especially violence against children. But I did not know this tale. I did not know that my one-year-old body had known such violence. I could not eat. I did not tell mommy her story had upset me.  She can’t tend to feelings.  I went to the restroom, cried just a little, and reassured myself that we’d come back to this new information when it was safe.

A week later I decided it was time to process the new memory.  I will not tell you not to try this at home, but I will tell you, I began doing these types of exercises after extensive, intensive trauma therapy. Here’s what happened:

I sat in a meditative posture for 7 to 10 minutes just calming my body and thoughts.  Then I used my imagination to picture a scene in which my one-year-old self was being spanked for wetting her diaper and crying for her bottle. Just as daddy was about to hit my one-year-old self again, my adult self-stepped in, stopped him and picked baby me up. I envisioned myself holding and rocking the one-year-old me.  In real-time I am crying.  Then something happened in the visualization I did not expect.  First, a brown little fat one-year old mommy joined the embrace, then mister chunky one-year-old daddy joined us.  There I was holding myself, my daddy, and my mommy at one-year-old in my arms, three little brown babies, and me crying, swaying, reassuring.  This went on until I was done.

Exhausted, I got up, fixed myself a cup of hot water and thought of how painful and beautiful life is.