Page 22 - DAPHNE HART - MY MAMA STORY (AUDIO VERSION)

I was born in Kingston and had a different accent. Although he
tolerated me, he made my life miserable.

Then one day, out of the blue, an older boy showed up—who I was told
was my older brother. Now I had two of them to deal with. My

stuttering became so much worse.

In those days, nobody told children anything. They were only to be seen
and not heard. But once, during a heated quarrel, I heard my dad say,

“She is not even mine.” In his country’s way of speaking: "She a no fi
mi pickney."

Oh. So that was the problem.

This is what I believe happened—just an assumption. My mother had
a son when she was younger, who was taken from her to live with his

father. So, Mom and my stepfather lived together, and they had twins—

a boy and a girl. But the girl died. Whatever the reason was, my mother
left and went to Kingston, and somehow ended up with me. And

because I was a girl, my father probably didn’t want me. The men of
those days did not want girls. She, unfortunately, fell into hard times,

so she came back to the man she had left in the country—my
stepfather—with me in tow.

My mom was always going to see a doctor somewhere because she
always had stomach pains. But they never did say what was wrong. I

didn’t think they knew. No one knew the word cancer at that time.

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