I find it difficult to put what is happening inside my head into words, I am constantly thinking about everything and anything. I have this vision of my teenage mother bringing me home swaddled in a hand-knitted white shawl to her violent dysfunctional home. My seventeen year old mother must have been absolutely petrified. Her sadistic father thought it was ok to beat his wife and children, it was always rumored that my mother’s thirteen year old sister Lilly died after one of his beatings. Her mother was a gentle, caring and understanding woman who would have supported my mother and me. Eighteen months later my grandparents were raising me in my mothers absences. I dont think I ever got over my mother leaving me, there was always this emptiness, and longing to be wanted. I was quite a robust child and didn’t give a damn about my grandfathers cruelty to me. I was accustomed to it, in fact I didn’t know any difference, I have always relish attention whether good or bad. I was in the spotlight on the worlds stage. That is what my grandmother would say to me, The world belongs to God and we play parts on his stage. I always played the sad victim, the abandoned baby, the child whose life was destroyed by my grandfather.At school, I didn’t escape the degrading parts dished out by the headteachers. They would march me out in front of the class and hit me, I was never going to let them see me cry, I was going to play a brave part. At ten years old I didn’t know my time’s tables, nor could I tell the time. Yet I was forced to play a rape victim from ten to fifteen years old. I called my grandmother muma, she also played the most horrific parts, she was a victim of domestic violence. And I played the part of watching it all. Muma was always smartly dressed in her best taffeta frock and feather or straw hat she had the sweetest smile, even though my grandfather had knocked her teeth out long before I was born. She would say to me you must always smile and be brave on Gods stage, and went on to say weeping was a sure sign of strength, she would insist there was nothing wrong with being vulnerable. I clearly remember muma putting my hair in ringlets held with pretty ribbons and my best lacy dress that my mum had sent me from England. My grandmother was always praising me and taking me to Mr Billy Moyce to have my photograph taken. She would send the photo’s to my mother, my mother would write back and say how good looking I had grown. I wonder what my muma would say if she knew I went on to play some of the most disastrous parts on God’s stage, while she got to play an angel. by Dorothy Maude.
Dorothy Maude My Life
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My name is Dorothy and I want to share with the world my trial and tribulations from St. Helena to where I now reside in England.My Photos
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