A Prayer for that Little Girl

     I remember the wet, warmth that spreads between one’s legs.  It must be around three at night, an ungodly hour, when everyone is asleep.  I opened my eyes.  I had dreamt I was peeing.  Feeling the relief of the relaxing muscles, the relief when your bladder lets off. 

    The relief immediately turned into shame.  I had, yet again, peed in bed. 

    I was 12 years old, already in the 7^th standard.  I could not believe I had yet again, lost bladder control.  I imagined my mother’s angry shouting the next day, her face contorted in sarcasm.  It would mean extra work for her.  But, she would also be worried.  Her technique to hide anxiety was being angry at me. 

    My brain started working hard.  “Suppose I get up and wash the sheets now itself?  I could be caught doing that because I never wash sheets, let alone at 3 AM in the morning.  Suppose I drag my sleeping brother and get him to sleep on the wet mattress?  He might not wake up because he was a sound sleeper.  Yes, I will do that.  Of course, he would be blamed the next day.  He himself would not know he was not responsible.  But, that would be ok, because he was a child and children are allowed to pee in bed.”  I kept calculating the pros and cons of my con-job. 

    I knew just one thing.  I could not blamed for this.  I was no more a child, I was almost a young woman.  And, I knew one thing for sure - I had to face this alone. 

    I still don’t know why I lost control at that time in my life.  I can connect it to a particular teacher – Sister Ivodia.  A skinny, old and dark face comes to my mind when I utter that name to myself.  She hated me.  In a class of 60 odd students, she would focus on me to express all her violence.  I started failing in Maths, for that was her subject.  I had just forged my mom’s signature to return the progress card.  I had faced the shame of failing then, and developed a secret to hold, a self that I could not show to the world.  Now, I was facing shame again, by peeing in bed, and developing a secret to escape that shame.

    That was a period of shame, generally.  My milk teeth had all given way to large, protruding buck teeth.  My childish beauty had disappeared.  I never knew I had it when I was beautiful.  But, I knew my ugliness everyday.  I had turned into an awkward, ugly girl, sprouting one single breast (another secret I hid from everyone). 

    I felt nobody loved me, least of all me. 

    But, looking back, I am so proud of that 12 year old girl.  She handled her situation so well! 

    She went to her father, whom she feared, when he was resting in the outside verandah, and with much trepidation but some resolve, demanded money for Maths tuitions.  She had found the tuition class herself, run by a poor Christian woman who was staying in the convent she studied.  She started scoring high in Maths in just one month, with that little extra attention!.  She started greedily reading up Malayalam psychology journals and found that she could control her bladder.  She developed a ritual of emptying her bladder every night before bed.  She understood she could control her dreams!  The moment a bathroom appeared in her dreams she taught herself to wake up, for that was the clue she would pee now. 

    Somehow, she became an adult those days. 

    And, looking back, I hug that little girl.  She was alone, she had no one to share her trials.  Yet, she survived. 

    May that little girl in me never leave me.  May she always pick herself up and survive.  Amen!