The year you left

I remember a time when we bathed in the same basin, wasting the water in senseless fights and taking all the scolding in stride when we came out with soap in our hair. Mother was never happy with us but she loved you almost the same as me.

You taught me how to braid my hair and do those knots they now say are bantu knots. I never understood why your mother constantly shaved your head. You always looked like a skinny little boy until your breasts began to grow and they forced us to wear dresses. It took me a while longer and i remember you always laughed at me. You called me retarded. I did not know what the word meant. You always had these many big words as though we never went to the same school.

I know what the word means now. I am not angry with you. I could never be. You said it in jest. You must have. You could never have known how close to home you hit.

I have always been a little slow in my growth. Everything grew about four years after yours did. I learned to read and write much later than you did. It always bothered me when people said i was a little slow as though the word little should make me feel like i was not too far off the mark.

I remember how when my mind wandered as it was wont to do, you would make excuses for me in class. It must have been so hard for you. Having to speak up for me as well as yourself. My mother cried every time she heard the stories of how brave you were on the play ground when the other kids pulled at my hair and shook my head to get a reaction out of me.

I remember when i stopped speaking. It was the year you left. Your family was moving to the city because your dad had got that job. I remember you saying you would come and visit and your mother asking my mother to send me to visit in the holidays. I remember clearly because i never could bring myself to speak after. No one understood the stutter anyway and no one had the patience to try.

I thought of you today because my seven year old asked me if i ever had any friends as a child since i could not speak. I have told her about you. The beautiful times we had. How close we were. She asks why she has not met you before and i tell her that i never saw you again after you moved to the city. She asks why i do not look for you now that we are in the city.

I really thought i would see you again. When the years kept going by and no one from your family was seen again, my mother tried hard to get my mind off you. She said it would do me no good to dwell on it. She told me that one day i would find people who loved me just as i was.

They told me at school that i drove you away. That your parents did not want you growing up around a disabled child, that they feared it was contagious, this slowness. They were mean children but i feared that maybe they were right. Because you never once looked for me and yet you knew where to find me.

I started to speak again a year later. My parents sent me to my aunt in the city who took me to see someone who could help children like me. It was many things that caused me to be the way i was back then but i am a grown woman now, and things are different. I have four children with my husband. I have a great job and i volunteer at a children's shelter every weekend.

I hope you are happy and well. I wish i knew how to find you. I tried all these social media platforms but you are not there. Not by the names i know at least. It amazes me that in this day and age, a person can just not be found. Perhaps it is i who does not know how to look. I just want to say, if you ever read this, that i never forgot you.