Dear Aunty Timi by Ejura Salihu

 It has been twenty years since the last time I saw you and it was a surprise to see you again today. However the surprise is not a pleasant one, it is one filled with anger and pain at a memory half forgotten. I remember feeling like you owed me something I could not ask for the day you left.

You came to me and asked for a hug and a kiss and I relented. Mummy rebuked me and I reluctantly obliged. I remember being angry with mum for days for that. How could she not see her precious little sister was defiling me? How could she not tell I was hurting? I did not understand why I felt like I was betraying the family by being molested by you. I felt naked, ashamed and angry.

Mummy always warned me against allowing boys to touch my wooha but she never said anything about girls or you so I was confused the first time you touched me and forced me to lick your wooha. I cried and begged and hurt when you put your finger in me but I couldn't tell mummy because I didn't know if you had a right to, you told me you had a right to, you said I was just a little girl and little girls obey orders. You lied, you betrayed me. You stayed for only a month but that short holiday changed the course of my life forever.


 Immediately I laid eyes on your six year old pretty daughter, all the semi-forgotten memories flooded in. I was exactly her age when you first kissed me and taught me to pleasure you. She looks like me too. I listened silently tonight as mum and dad make jokes about how she can easily be mistaken as mine and unlike others in the room, I did not laugh. I could not laugh. Each time I look at her, I feel a conflicting mixture of hate and love, a thirst for revenge and a hope for a peaceful childhood for her. You laughed too and looked at me 'lovingly' before asking about my academics and how I was doing. I could not tell if you felt guilty sitting beside me, if you even remember that holiday at all and what you did to me. I can't tell if it is all forgotten to you or if it just does not matter to you. You look happy and genuinely glad to see me and I am angry again.

I thought I healed a long time ago but alas, the scar has being ripped open again today and I have to start my healing all over again. I still have not told mum nor dad and I don't know if I will ever tell anyone in the family. It is your shame not mine, your crime not mine. It was you who violated family and blood not me. Why  do I still feel so ashamed? Why did you steal my childhood, aunty Timi? Why does it not hurt you too? I guess twenty years is a long time truly, not for me though. You have changed a lot, so have I but what you did has not changed. I still remember everyday.