I Will Survive, the song made famous during the Disco era by R&B songstress, Gloria Gaynor, born Gloria Fowles, who during an interview with Mo Rocca on my favorite Sunday broadcast, CBS Sunday Morning, revealed that she was molested by her mother’s boyfriend at age 12.
This was profoundly relatable to me because her reason for not telling her mother was identical to mine. The reason as stated by Ms. Gaynor, “I believed if my mother knew, she would kill him.”
As a 13-year-old child, and in my case, an only child, what’s worse, living with a terrible secret or growing up without your mother because she killed her child’s abuser?
I know my mother, she sacrificed so much to make sure I had everything I’d ever wanted. She always said, she loved me more than LIFE. She would die to keep me alive so had I told her what this man did to me, she would have killed him plain and simple. That was my second greatest fear, my first was that he said, “If you tell anyone, I’ll kill your mother!” My day to day thoughts, while in school and keeping me up at night, were, If I tell her, he’d be dead and I wanted him dead, or like in most cases, she’d be sent to prison for murder and I’d be without a mother, living with relatives. So, I remained silent. To see what I did immediately following the attack, read my poem, Shedding.
Fortunately, after the one and only time that he assaulted me, he fled to his hometown in New Port News, VA. My mother’s explanation of his sudden disappearance was because of an altercation that took place the following day after my attack when he overheard my mother on the phone, talking to my cousin, whom she hadn’t seen in years. My cousin was coming home and called to tell my mother that she wanted very much to see her. The rapist heard her my mother say, “Oh Sweetheart, I can’t wait to see you, let me know the moment you get here, be safe, I love you.” With that he stormed into the room, knocked the phone out of her hand (my cousin heard the onset of the altercation) he pulled the phone cord out of the wall and beat my mother with the telephone receiver. She was taken to the ER by our next-door neighbor. I arrived home from school to find out that my mother was in the hospital and the rapist was gone. My mother received stiches for cuts in her head and just above her eye. We never saw or heard from him again. Still each day, I lived in fear that he would come back and attack me.
I grew up wishing that there was no such thing as a Statute of Limitations. As I got older, I thought I could report the rape, perhaps without my mother’s knowledge and the court would find him and summons him to face the charges against him, then sentence him to life in prison. Yet again, in the mind of nineteen-year-old with little understanding of how the Criminal Justice System really works (or doesn’t really work) I realized that my Justice would never materialize. With prosecution not being an option, I began praying day and night that he would die a horrible death. This prayer was a daily ritual. I was sure that if GOD loved me, he would destroy him for his sins. I recited frequently in my head, the Bible verse, Vengeance is Mine, says the Lord. So surely GOD will torture him in Hell.
A few years ago, while looking for an obituary online for a friend, I decided to enter the name of Fernando Williams, the rapist. I wanted to see if he was alive or dead. Praise GOD, he was dead. As I read his obituary, I was filled with anger that none of the guests in attendance of his funeral knew who and what he was, A RAPIST! Since reading the kind words about him, I’ve thought of traveling to New Port News, VA to visit his grave site and violate it, the way he violated me by exposing his identity for his family and all who pass by. Ahh, the joy of my revelation to his family, friends and complete strangers passing by at the sight of the word RAPIST scribed in BIG BOLD RED LETTERS followed by MAY HE SUFFER AND ROT IN HELL!!!
