Born on the 21/10/1957 to my parents Trevor and Eilleen Wight.  I had ginger hair and blue eyes and weighed 5 lbs 13 ounces and was born at Mothers Hospital Durban at 21h10.
 
I have one sister who is 1 year and 11 months older than me.  She has been married for 26 years and has two children, Clayton and Helen.
 
I lived with my mother and father in Hillary, Durban until I was 13 years old.  My family relationships were not good and most of my life there were always cousins living with us due to their parents having problems.  My mother and father constantly fought and my father was an extremely abusive man verbally and physically.  This was not helped by my mothers constant nagging and bickering.  Both my parents, as much as they would not admit it, had extramarital affairs and my mother took great pleasure in taking my sister and I and showing us where my father was with his girlfriends.
 
Throughout my the 13 years of living with my parents, I had to stop my father from beating my mother many times, my older sister hiding away from fear.
My mother and father got divorced, a bitter and twisted time, when I was fourteen years old.
 
My mother was a very bitter person and found it necessary to advise us children on all the details of her arguments and disagreements that she had with my father no matter what those details were. 
 
My mother got into another relationship with a man with two daughters and took great pride in being their ‘mother’ leaving us as teenagers to look after ourselves, so much so that I had my appendix out in an emergency operation just before new year and she went away on three weeks holiday while I was in hospital leaving my sister to take care of me.
 
This resulted in us having boyfriends at home and no control, I fell pregnant when I was 16 years old.  My mother sent me to live with my father, who then sent me to an unmarried mothers home because I was pregnant and shaming the family.  They then tried to force me to give my baby (Caryanne) up for adoption.  This could have been possible even though I did not agree.  The father of the baby and I went to see a lawyer who got the permission of the court to allow us to marry, which stopped my parents carrying on with the forced adoption.
 
I moved to Ladysmith Army Base when Caryanne was 2 weeks old and I was 17 years old.  Living on the smallest salary, with a baby that was allergic to milk, and needed Goats milk which was extremely expensive at that time.  My Husband and I lived on rice and tomatoes which were stolen for us from the kitchen at the army base, so that we could afford to buy the things that Caryanne needed.  There was little or no help from my parents at that time.  I fell pregnant and while pregnant, my husband kicked me in the stomach and i went into early labour, gave birth to a little girl who died 3 days later. I was married to Athol for 2 and a half years, only to find out that he was having an affair with a lieutenant and a Sargent at the army base, both male.  He had befriended a male by the name of Peter, who spent alot of time at our home, and when I found out about my Husband I confided in his friend who helped me move out of the home and back down to Durban. 
 
I stayed with my sister for a while until one day we had an argument and she told me to leave with my child, the only place I had to go was to the Friend.  I stayed with him and eventually landed up marrying him.  We had a stormy marriage, he beat me, tried to shoot me, hit me with a horse whip.  I spend alot of the time on my own in a very dangerous area, sleeping with a double barrel shot gun at my side.  My husband was working as a bouncer as a second job, at a gay club as a bouncer.  Little did I realize that he would start bringing his boy friends home to sleep with him in the bedroom next to the main bedroom.  If I said anything I would be beaten.  After 2 and a half years, my father assisted me to move out.  While he was at his second job, my father and I moved all my things out of the house and into a flat that I had arranged before hand.  He only found me 6 months later, after I had divorced him.
 
I eventually found a job in the Pinetown area, and met a man who seemed to be the best person I had ever met, financial security, lovely family.  While I was arranging our wedding he beat me up twice, the second time a week before the wedding, so I got married with a black eye.  I was too stupid (embarrassed) to cancel the wedding as there were going to be 300 people at the wedding.  For the next 2 and a half years he beat me to a pulp.  Always making excuses that I had made him angry.  He spent all my savings which I had put aside so that I could not leave him.  After the 5th or 6th time of going to the doctor after being beaten up the doctor told me to stand up as he was going to show me how to defend myself.  My husband was rather over weight and every time he punched me there was a gap between his arms, and the doctor taught me how to hit him back through the gap.  I did this many times, but was not happy with having to live with the violence and verbal abuse, it was effecting me as well as Caryanne.  So 2 and a half years later I left him, he moved into his new house and I moved to my flat.  While I lived on my own, my mother and my ex husband tried to take Caryanne away from me, as they said I was not a good mother.  The welfare decided that my ex husband would have visiting rights, he took her for the new year weekend, only to sexually abuse her because I had left him.  He got away with it only because I only found out six months later.
 
I then met Keith.  Caryanne fell in love with him first and her words to me were ‘Mom you can marry him until I am 16 then he can marry me.’  Well we married and stayed married for 24 years.  There were many happy times but mostly hurtful times, not due to our living conditions but due to past hurts which had not been dealt with, which caused untold hurt and unhappiness.   Out of this mostly unhappy marriage, Isiaiah 54 was born.  Taking the bad experiences that I have had in my life and using them to help others. 
 
Three years ago my father died from Cancer, he hated what I was doing, hated the fact that I had black children, and before he died I had not spoken to him except to wish him for his Birthday, Christmas and New Year.
 
My mother and I have put our differences aside, she has married a wonderful man whom I have known for most of my life, and he has stepped into the role of DAD, he is my advisor, and alot more.
 
All in all I have realized that the one thing that was constant in my up and down life, was that I wanted stability, financial security and a family life for Caryanne.  I sacrificed my entire being so that she could have the best.  That unfortunately does not work, at a stage in her life she found a wonderful husband who loves her, she has her own life, and I was left with the life that I had chosen for her security and the thought of knowing that I have caused a tremendous amount of hurt in her life which never should have been. 
 
Personally the last 26 years of working with the children and the community have satisfied by being, there have been ups and downs, but I have used those as lessons in life and used them to help others.  I love who I am now and want to share it with others.

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