So on Sunday 16th May during @this_is_Jilo (Instagram tag) #SpotlightSundays (if you haven’t been joining in, what have you been doing? Don’t miss this Sundays one. Click her @ and follow her to get involved.)
I shared out loud for the first time one of the stories from my upbringing that would probably cause a gasp and did bring outrage.
As a little girl (and even as an adult I guess) I had the most over active imagination. This meant that many a night I would wake with a nightmare and run down the hallway to my parents room so scared that I would hold my breath in case any monsters might hear me (we’ve all done it)
My mother, the Catholic that she is, would always point me in the direction of the Lord by telling me that it was ‘God punishing me because he had seen I was bad that day’. She would then make me get my bible and or rosary and pray. I would often fall back to sleep with my head buried in the bible so the written word must have given me some measure of comfort. However, on the nights that would have me sprinting back down the hallway a few hours later, my dad would just lift the bedcovers and let me sleep with them. I think this was from the age of 4-7ish (Yes I could read when I started playgroup but thats another story).
This memory flashed up in my head before Sunday and I took the opportunity presented by lockdown to call my mum out on it. Her response, she laughed and said ‘Well, you probably had been bad that day”.
As you read the words on the pictures above you should know that I often gave as good as I got. I don’t hate God, nor has this made me wary of being Catholic. When it was no longer a forced requirement for me to go to Church, I still took myself along.
In hindsight can look back age these memories and think maybe a Black mothers love is tough but she knows what the world has coming for us.
KRIS_TNA 