To Love Until It Hurts

ix years before, when I was barely thirteen years old, I had an experience with another depraved man; this time it was a pedophile. One night I woke up sweating, agitated by a terrible nightmare. When my mother came into the room, alerted by my screams, I begged her not to send me back to the summer courses I was taking at a Catholic school because a man was forcing me to do things I did not want to do. Today I think back at how worried my parents would have been upon hearing this kind of news that caught them completely unaware and totally by surprise. What vile disillusion to find out that that a family friend —one who they visited often and even opened their home to him— had attempted to dishonor their innocent, pure and helpless firstborn!

In my confusion and incredulity and attempting to understand what was going on, I remember asking the clergyman if what he was doing to me was right, if he attended Mass and received daily communion. He replied: “yes.” OF COURSE! All of them do those things “out of love” and they successfully convince their innocent victims that it is “a right kind of love”. But I have always had divine protection and he was unable to hurt me. And I confirmed this to my father.

The following morning and for a few days I remained at home. Years later my mother told me that my father went out that morning to kill the son of a gun. But it is obvious that the priests were successful in dissuading him, and instead of having a tragedy, two days later the priest was put on a plane and sent to Spain, his birthplace. What an uproar! At that time, the little girl that I was did not feel the need for vengeance; she just forgot the event. Today, as I look back to write about this experience I only hope that my father gave him a good punch and kicked him where it hurt the most. He deserved it. I never heard from him again. I imagine that he must have fulfilled his desires with another innocent, which is what they all end up doing every time they are sent to another place to protect them and cover the scandal. Twenty years later I heard through my mother that he had died. I did not feel anything that could be regarded as negative; on the contrary, I surprised myself when I felt an air of compassion in my heart. The clergyman had been a brother at the prestigious Colegio Ponceño de Varones (Ponce Private School for Boys), a Catholic institution that back then taught boys but accepted girls in its summer school session, where I was taking mathematics and Spanish courses.