This is not one of those stories that begin with a ‘Once upon a Time’ and end with ‘And they lived happily ever after’. This is the story of a little boy who, many would agree, suffered greatly at the hands of those who should have cared for him, guided him towards adulthood and protected him from forlornness – but ended up growing up knowing little about love and what to expect of life in itself.
For the sake of this boy’s anonymity we shall call him R during the the telling of this story. Many reading through this story might recognise some of the anecdotes, many might think they know who he is and many might identify with him. And you might not participate in any of the former described.
But his anonymity is crucial. Survival, whether emotional or physical, is simply not a joking matter. He needs to remain anonymous, as such, to keep on breathing, to just continue; to remain the person he has now become, having lived through the horrible but formative times of the past and now looking forward to the future, whatever that may bring him, with a passion for life. Never forgetting the struggle that has made him who he is today.
The story begins in a lovely town, then known for its liberal tendencies. It was the first Liberated and Free city of the West but little has remained from those so-called high days except their crumbling positive policies on drugs, sex workers’ and gay rights. It was during those days, in the glorious 1980′s that R was born. He was born to a women and man. Not that that is as such unusual, but to be frank, in hindsight they never even tried to fulfil the duties that society wants and even, in certain terms, obliges parents – mothers and fathers- to obey.
They left him only a few days after he was born, separating their ways for 4 years, during which time they never came to visit or even enquire after him and left him under the care of his maternal grandparents. If only R received care by them. Because of his mixed raced heritage his White grandparents did little more than make sure R would not die of malnourishment.
As one can imagine little R was one of the saddest babies in that part of the privileged world. From what he was told later by other family members who sometimes pretended to show some interest in little R’s life he did not start walking or even talking till he was at least 3 years old. He was mostly known for just sitting in a corner of a room, or hiding behind whatever he could find, with a sadder than sad look in his eyes. It made some of those who came round to his grandparents house, who were intrigued by the little boy, think R was most probably severely autistic or, as they used to call it during those days, retarded.
R himself remembers little of those first four years of his life. Most he repressed for a very long time – but some memories are not meant to be forgotten. And some can’t be, even from that young an age. R sometimes has flashes of emotions running through his body, where he recalls the utter loneliness he felt during those years. The feeling that nobody actually cared about him enough to give him a cuddle was something that was all-enveloping. Love, as such: he did not have a clue what it meant or stood for.
He remembers clearly however that whenever he was dragged out of the house and out into the world, R always felt like everything surrounding him was what he could only describe as abnormal. Nothing he encountered seemed familiar or in any sense comprehensible, since his own little reality felt so different than anything he saw in that scary world outside.
Other children seemed surreal. So different, yet so appealing. The interactions they seemed to have with their parental figures felt like something he wanted desperately though he did not yet know the emotion of jealousy. Deep down R knew he was missing out on something in his own life when he was confronted with the wider world, but could not place any of it. That realisation only made him feel sadder and more withdrawn from what was going on around him – if there was anything happening at all, except the constant ignoring of his mere existence.
The only comfort R had was a little teddy bear a distant relative had once brought over and given to him at age 2. It was probably the only gift R had received before that moment, given out of compassion for how very troubled and sad he looked. That teddy bear unfortunately did not survive very long. His grandmother thought it looked too childish for a boy of 3 to carry around everywhere, took it away one day and threw it away. R looked everywhere he could to retrieve it and upon realisation he would not see it ever again cried for days. Those tears shed were more than just for a thrown away teddy, they stood for everything he felt was missing in his life.
At the age of 3 he finally began to realise that he was not abnormal or retarded. R was just lonely. R was in desperate need for love. R was coming to the conclusion that he wanted someone to care for him, that everything and everyone surrounding him was what was wrong. It wasn’t R that was troubled. It was the surroundings he found himself in that were so emotionally destructive and he is still to this very day grateful it did not destroy him completely, but made him the person he now is.
When R turned 4 his parents returned into his life, pretending that they had resolved the issues they had with each other and pretending even more that they were finally ready to take care of the little boy. They obviously knew little of care since they could not even look after themselves, but off they went, together, a little family, more of a façade than a reality.
For R nothing really changed. Instead of his grandparents it was now his biological parents who fulfilled the role of… neglect is what it would be called now by social services. But because certain things did change, because of the constant moving around to a new city every 6 to 11 months, those state institutions never got involved. Things might have ended up differently if they had, but maybe not. No regrets to be had there. Because if there was anything that their so-called family did very well, it was holding up the pretence that everything was all right. R should thank his mixed raced heritage for that. Being part Irish, Dutch, Turkic and Arabic does that to one. That kind of cultural heritage creates those masks quite naturally.
But R changed with every new situation he found himself in. Every new city, every new school, every new person he met made an everlasting impression upon him. His eyes opened. His mind took in everything it possibly could and more positively, his heart began to feel something more than only sadness. R’s soul had begun to form and, though many horrors were awaiting him on the road, he had begun a process that might possibly lead to something positive. And this is only the beginning of his story.
