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I was fourteen. Up till now I hadn't been interested in boys, really.
One day a friend and I were walking home from school and we passed a couple of guys going on their way to school. One of them
took the books in his hand and tapped me on the head and I instinctively ducked. My friend almost freaked out because she
thought the guy was interested in me. I didn't think anything of it. I was used to guys teasing me. I am told I was pretty.
Anyway, my friend said to me in excited tones, "That's Freddie!" I said, "Who's he?" She said, "Don't you know?" I said, "No."
She said, "His father is a singer." She mentioned the name of a popular song that his father had sung. Then she said, "That's
Maureen's ex-boyfriend." Well, that got my attention because Maureen was in my class and she was the prettiest girl in the
school.
So for a very short time, Freddie Komalram and I were linked romantically. However, it was just infatuation
as far as I was concerned. At fourteen, I wasn't really interested in boys. However, having my name linked with Komalram's
gave me the undignified reputation of being a 'hot hand' or as we say here in North America, 'easy'. I just ignored people,
because I knew my conscience was clear. Freddie, who didn't have the decency to dump me himself, sent one of his buddies to
tell me that it was over. I just laughed at the friend and asked him why Freddie didn't come and tell me himself. Later after
Freddie learned that I had a boyfriend, he again sent a buddy of his to ask me to reconcile with him. I again laughed and
told the buddy to get lost.
The boyfriend, Saul (not his real name) was the man who would later be my first husband
and an instrument of great evil (hatred) in my life. We were both sixteen, and I was ignorant of pure evil (hatred). Still,
even then I had the insight to recognize the mentality of a criminal in Saul but I was also ignorant enough to think
I could change him. I thought that if he would return the love I gave him he would change and maybe he would have changed,
but hatred had already taken root and I did not know it. He hated all women. Also, my family circumstances were not conducive
to Saul and I maintaining a healthy relationship.
Saul was very well known in the school. He was known as a womanizer
(as I found out later), he was very charismatic and always was surrounded by a large group of boys. Here was a man who harboured
a hatred for women, and still, was very popular both with the young men and women in the school. It was in the final year
of high school that I got to know of the existence of Saul. One of his friends from his group had developed a fixation
towards me. That kid dogged me every day. He even asked his friend, Saul to put in a good word for him. That is how
I became acquainted with Saul and it wasn't until Saul and I started going around that the other boy finally
gave up. The best friend got the girl.
I realized I had fallen in love the day I was going to visit Saul at his
house for the first time. I felt something deep down inside, a stirring in my heart. Fear and hope. It might be a point of
interest to note here that I have always chosen the men with whom I fell in love. Whoever said that we couldn't control who
we fall in love with has no self-awareness. I know the day I chose Saul to be the one and it was a conscious decision.
Then I followed with my actions. Striking up a friendship and the feeling/emotion came last of all.
That is
how it always is. We entertain a thought, we make a choice, that choice is followed by the action and then the feeling comes
last. The Garden of Eden's example is the best one.
Ask any committed married couple and they will tell you that they
don't feel loving at all times towards their mate. But it is the commitment they made when they married, that kept them and
held them together. And which is usually the first to go out the window? The feeling. Whoever looks at a woman to lust after
(desire) her, has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Matt. 5:28).
However, today that sequence is out
of whack. Today, boy meets girl. Boy likes girl, (desires her, which is confused with love). Boy has sex with girl (which
is ordained for marriage only), then they become just friends and they go on to meet another sexual partner and do it all
over again. Today, marriage is a dirty word, and sex and money are gods.
That is not what God ordained from the beginning
and man will one day give account. "As in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. For as in the days
before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark
and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be." [Jesus] (Matt.
24:37-39).
Put yourself in my position if you possibly can. I was a young woman who had not had any nurturing, who
was not allowed to have friends nor was I allowed to socialize with the young people in the community. I was isolated, with
the exception of my young niece (9 years younger), with whom I was forced to play. I had no friends with whom I could share
my hopes, fears, dreams and desires.
I got along with my niece. She was like the little sister I didn't have
and I guess I was like a big sister. We never fought, but I used to get angry when she would complain to her mother that I
wouldn't play with her. Then her mother would rail on me to play with her. She would lay the guilt trip by telling me how
I didn't like me niece. That was not true, so to shut them both up and keep the peace I would oblige. We shared the same bed
because she didn't want to sleep alone, but she kicked like a bull, so that also felt like a thorn in my side, many times
literally.
I had, and still have no relationship with my brother, whose roof I lived under for about seven years.
We rarely spoke to each other, when we did it was to communicate information. He never once sat down and had a one on one
conversation with me. My sister-in-law was the one who talked to me the most. She is a good communicator with high morals
but falls short in the area of materialism and covetousness, which are her vice.
I did not trust her with my inner
thoughts. She had betrayed the trust I had in her, when she ratted on me once over a rude comment I made about my oldest brother
who had given my youngest brother a black eye. I hated the fact that he had hit my brother, maybe for selfish reasons for
I reasoned that if he could hit my brother, he could hit me too. Years later that would come true, when he gave me a perforated
eardrum as a result of being slapped three times. I was a grown woman, thirty-one years old and Alex was eight years old.
Living with my second brother though showed me how a family functions, for they had an ideal marriage. There
was open communication and respect between them. They lavished their only child, their princess, with love and devotion and
every material thing that they could give her. They pushed her to excel academically and she passed the Common Entrance Exam
to go to the top high school in the country. In the Thank You card they gave to her, they wrote, "Thank you for your best
effort."
I learned a lot from just observing how they lived, and I envisioned living the same kind of life with the
one I choose to be my husband. They worked hard. They taught school during the day, and sold ice cream and other sweet meats
on the side. They also raised chickens and planted tomatoes. They were always busy but as I later found out from no other
than my husband, not too busy for my brother to cheat on my sister-in-law. The truth came to light years later when my niece,
his daughter, found him out. "The soul that sins shall surely die." (Ezek. 18:4).
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