THE OPEN MIND COLLECTION

The Child I Never Wanted

     "I was cursed to be raped..., to be broken inside to such a point that I wanted to end my life and that of the child of the monster that defiled me. I never wanted to give birth to his baby and bear twice the burden but I also never wanted to live my entire life with the guilt of aborting an innocent soul..., a mere victim of circumstance. He was born and I looked at him with disgust. I foresaw a rapist in him just like his father..., the horrors he would cause to that teenage girl...than the renowned musician he is today..., a loving husband to his wife and a loving father to his children..., a God-fearing man.

"I saw him grow and each day I had to go through the torture of raising him. Each day he reminded me of the day I was raped. I had to re-live that moment everyday for many years. Whenever I chastised him for wrongdoing it was as if I was punishing him for the guilt of the man in prison whom he was a spitting image of. In short...I hated him. I hated my own son!

"But he loved me.... He respected me. He grew up different from all the other children around him. He always tried to find the reason why I hated him so much and soon he came to the knowledge of whom his father was and he said, 'Mom...I'm sorry.' He apologized on the man's behalf and I embraced him and cried on his shoulder, and I finally forgave the man who had almost destroyed my entire life and I made peace.

"I finally came to the conclusion that I was not the one (through my hatred) who had raised this caring young man...but it was God himself. The child I never wanted has become the greatest blessing I've ever had. How can such a blessing come out of such a curse as...rape? But it did...and now I'm a sister to my own son...all because we share the same father."

The counselor shed many tears as she narrated her story to the teenage girl who sat in front of her. Tears also flowed out of the girl's eyes as she listened intently. She was now the counselor who listened and the counselor was the one who needed counselling.

Runyararo (the counselor) wiped her tears off her wrinkled face which told a story of someone whose youth had been stolen away from her at age fifteen and the misery she felt after, had made her look older even now when she was forty-five. She deeply inhaled before she gave the teenager her final advice.

"It's your own choice Cleo, to keep the baby or to abort...when you've been raped" Runyararo fixed her spectacles back over her still-wet eyes and added "but my personal advice to you would be to give birth to the baby. You shouldn't deny another human being the chance to live his or her life..., but if you are unable to raise it and if you fear that the child will only make your situation even worse after it is born, the Child's Welfare will take it and give it up for adoption."

Cleopatra nodded emphatically to show thatshe understood clearly. "There's no need for an abortion...or an adoption" shepaused and then said "I'll keep the child."