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New Zealand's Blackest Day. 2010 = 2011
My
home town for the first 25years of my Childhood, The Catholic Cathedral
may not survive the fall, of the bricks in front of her, which hold the
old round stairs up to the large room with an enormous organ which rang
out each Sunday, as I joined our choir or orphan girls from Nazareth
House, as my heart sang the hymns, in Latin and I knew each word by
heart, It was like being in another world, with the Angels, and us with
out our wings and Halos.
The Cathedral in the square had memories
for me as well, each Saturday afternoon I would go there, and change
the coloured ribbons, in the big book on the Alter and the Pulpit. And
as I sang in my heavenly Cathedral, I would have a wee laugh to myself
and think of the Bishop in his Cathedral in the Square, trying to find
his page, that he had marked, not know that a little catholic orphan
girl had changed them for him, the Evening before.
My Cathedral,
was were I got Married on April 24 1965 with the big organ playing the
wedding March as I walked up to the high Alter on the arms of my Father
in-law, my husband Brian's father. I thought that it would be the only
way, to get to know him, as he had no daughters, So I wanted him, to
give me away, as though I was his daughter and then, I would then became
his daughter, and walk out of the Cathedral, on the arm of his son,
Brain, and I was his daughter from that day on. Never before I had meet a
kinder man, so gentle and caring, a father I had wished for all of my
life, and he too saved my Christchurch in his heart, for ever.
We
are all here for you Christchurch, young and old alike, have a link to
our Main Land, and not one day goes by, without thinking of you all.
Take Care Christchurch and Keep Safe.
Child abuse doesn't only happen in poor families or bad neighbourhoods.
It crosses all racial, economic, and cultural lines. Sometimes, families
who seem to have it all from the outside, are hiding a different story,
behind closed doors.
And don't I know that so well. They were
like two different people, so good in the eyes of every one, on the out
side, of the orphanages, but to us children, it was another story. And
we survived to tell our stories, for the world to hear and now we are
believed.
24 years in these catholic church orphanages. The Good Shepherd and then
the Nazareth House nuns took the place of my family. They told me my
mother was dead. In the two orphanages life needed to meet the nun's
requirements. In part this meant that, because my mother was sinful, if I
was not beaten to change me, I would be too. So they said when they
beat me.
I find it hard to think about it because to remember it
to re-live the fear and confusion - the unhappiness of being a child
able only to hope that if! earned the nun's favour, I would become one
of the children who the nuns cared about; who had a life which was sure
to end in Heaven. Instead of being the child the nuns' found me to be -
who needed to be beaten for her mother's sin and because, although there
was little hope for it, that might help me to be worthy of love -
eventually God's love.
I always knew it was a childhood filled
with pain and confusion. I now realise the nuns who were good; were
doing God's work, were also cruel, were vicious women, monsters.
I never thought that the things that I was afraid of were caused by my childhood experiences.
What
sticks in my mind about the nuns is how they always told us that we
were no good, all I heard every day was. "You'll never be any good, your
mother never wanted you, you'll end up in the gutter like her, no one
will ever want you.
It is so hard to forget that - it is there
all the time. What the individual members of the two Orders did and what
the senior members of the Orders allowed, was a reign of terror and
fear for the helpless children.
There were some of us who were
unlucky enough to be singled out as 'the chosen ones' of the priest,
nuns; lay workers and the older girls of the two orders, who picked us
out to sexually abuse us. The sexual abuse has scarred me for life and
no amount of counselling can cure me of the pain I feel, within.
The
injuries inflicted on me, were severe physical beatings; child labour;
semi-starvation; cold and poor clothing; overwork; lack of education;
emotional abuse; physical abuse; spiritual abuse; sexual abuse; sadistic
torture; pain; suffering from carers and those trusted with our care,
who we trusted - through no choice of our own, these sadistic people who
hid behind the image of being saintly people in the service of God.
Corporal
punishment was common in both girls and boys Catholic orphanages, the
nuns in particular had exercise power over the girls for the rest of our
lives.
Some of us girls had beautiful wavy hair, the nuns hated
us and told us we were vain, I didn't know what vain meant. They would
try to straighten our hair by wetting it and then pulling on our hair,
telling us that we were ugly, I believed them and hated myself so much
that all my life
I would fall to pieces at the very sight of the
nuns as they would pick on the girls who did not have parents and we who
were illegitimate, we got the worst of the beatings, then I would get
it again because I wet my bed, I wet my bed until I was ten, I was
beaten into pulp for it.
It was the beating and the fear of the
nuns is why I wet my bed. I was treated like I was unwanted, something
to be hidden away and to be ashamed of. I was so scared.
They
would say you were telling lies, but you weren't, you couldn't say that,
if the nuns said you were a liar, then you were a liar. The nuns use to
make me open my mouth and put a cake of soap on my tongue, they then
pushed my month shut and I had to keep it shut on the soap, my mouth
would be foaming, as well as me being so sick and kept vomiting, they
did not care what state I was in. It was worse than the concentration
camp for children.
Some of the girls committed suicide, some are
in mental hospital, some are homeless living on the streets; some are
alcoholics and some are in and out of prison. The most difficult thing
in life is when you are put down so much as a child, you don't have any
confidence, it really does hold you back.
I was terribly nervous,
I felt that I was nuisance to everyone around me, I still am doubting
myself, I don't have any confidence. I think it is a kind of a fear, the
same kind of fear I had as a child growing up, all those years ago
Be of Good Cheer Christchurch, your Faith is strong, You are much closer now, as your love for your city, God and Jesus have pulled you all through your months of torment. You are in the arms of Jesus as you also carry your cross as Jesus did and now you show us all, through your strength in the Lord, by building your Catholic Cathedral from the ground, and watch it grow, as your Love for Jesus, grows within you all each day.
Keep safe in Jesus arms Christchurch, my home town, you are much loved by us all around the world, we look to you, as we see, each and every day, when new quakes take more of your beautiful city down, you still stand tall and we are so proud of you. Ann