This is not a story about street harassment.
This is a story about domestic violence.
When I was still an eight year old child,
My paternal grandfather used to touch me in a way that made me uncomfortable.

I didn’t understand what was going on,
But I wasn’t happy about it.
I thought that I was a bad person,
Because I let my grandfather touch me,
Without saying no or objecting.

But when it happened again,
I felt frozen in shock and didn’t say anything.
The best I could do was run to my room,
Or my parents room,
Or something like that.

I tried as much as I could not to be alone with him,
But I was afraid to do more than that because I was a child,
And I thought that it was my fault.
That I was a bad girl.
I didn’t think for a second that my grandfather was the bad person,
And that I should tell my mother or anyone else.

When I grew up and was in grade 7,
I tried to tell one of my friends.
She ran off and told two other girls.
Each one of them went and told their mother.
They told me that I should tell my mother.
I refused. I was afraid to tell her.
But I tried.
I implied that I didn’t like my grandfather,
And that I didn’t want him to live with us anymore,
And that he asked me weird questions.

But I didn’t tell her what he asked me about,
Or what he talked to me about,
Or how he touched me.
I was scared.

Things came up, and I switched schools.
My relationship with the girls who knew got cut off,
And my mother didn’t know any of the three mothers who knew.
Nothing changed,
Except that one day when we were having lunch,
My grandfather said that he decided to leave us,
And go live in an elderly home.
The entire family was sad.
I was the only one who was happy.
When I felt that it showed on me, I was scared that he’d notice
So I decided not to say anything and show neither happiness or sadness.
I told my maternal grandmother that I wanted my grandfather to leave.
She told my mother.

It was then that my mother stopped rejecting my grandfather’s desire to leave.
She was the only one who didn’t object,
After being the one who always told him:
“This is your home, and we’re your family, we’ll take care of you.”
And stuff like that.

She changed her position, and took my side without telling me.
And when my father was surprised, she brought me to him and said,
“Tell your father what you said.”
“I said that I don’t want grandpa to live with us,” I said.

I left them and went to my room.
And no one talked to me, or asked me why I had said so.
But I imagine that until now they think,
It’s because he sleepwalked at night,
And assumed that I got scared.
But they don’t know the real reason.

When he went to the elderly home, I didn’t visit him.
Unless I had to, like during holidays or stuff.
Other than that, I had grown up,
And was about to graduate highschool.
I understood.
I understood that it was his fault,
And that I had spent my entire childhood believing that I was bad.
I spent it believing that God didn’t love me,
And that if someone from the family knew this about me, they wouldn’t love me.
They would cut me off.

I realized all of this when I was 16 or 17.
The 10 or so years any child remembers of their childhood,
I lived with a crime I didn’t commit,
But instead blamed and punished myself for.

My grandfather passed in 2013,
And I still don’t know how to forgive him.

The day he passed away, I cried and wept the most.
Not because he was dead,
But because I didn’t know how to forgive him.

I wanted to tell someone about this.
I feel guilty just writing this story.
The man is dead.
They say remember the dead’s good deeds,
But I can’t recall anything good he did.