After leaving the hospital from seeing my baby brother and me having the moment to hold my baby brother in my arms, I knew life was gonna be different for me in a good way. His baby little eyes looking at me made me wanna cry with joy because how precious and handsome he was. As time was moving forward, all I could think about was what I could do right now to reassure my brother that he was safe in my arms but by him being so little and not knowing what’s going on, it felt like time was going backwards for me. So when me and dad left my little brother and my mom at the hospital, I was very upset and heartbroken because I felt like a mother departing from her child forever. Little did I know, he was coming home soon.
A couple of days passed by and my dad and I decorated my room for my little brother so when he came home, he would feel comfortable and welcome in our shared space. I already knew that me sharing a room with my brother would take time off me getting any sleep; I knew that I would be up watching my brother making sure that he was okay.
The following morning comes and my parents wake me up to get ready for school, but I notice something was off just by the way they were acting. So I asked my mom if she was okay and she told me she was okay. She was just low on sleep taking care of my brother. Then I proceed to ask my dad if he is okay and he tells me that he is okay and that he was low on sleep as well.
I then proceeded to get ready for school while my parents were babying my brother. A couple of minutes later, I leave for school but before I could leave my mom would usually stop me, give me a big hug with a kiss, and tell me she loves me and to have a good day at school, but this particular day she forgot. Now I didn’t make a big deal about it because I didn’t want my parents to think I was jealous of my brother already when this was his first full day home.
After missing a week of school, everyone was excited to see me while congratulating me on my brother coming into the world. Me thanking everyone for the love and respect that was going on made me realize that I had a little mini me and that I was gonna be the best big sister he ever had. After school, my mom is in the kitchen cooking something to eat for me, something she always did when I came home from school. I proceed to go into my room and excitedly see my baby brother sleeping with his baby swaddle on and his pacifier. My mom told me to get settled in and get ready to eat. I take my bath and throw on some clothes so I can do my homework and eat what she made. A couple of minutes later, my mom brought out my favorite thing to eat, which was (and continues to be) noodles. I grab the bowl of noodles and my juice that she poured into my favorite Dora the Explorer cup and walk into the living room even though my mom had just told me that she wanted me to eat at the kitchen table so I wouldn’t make a mess.
This is the moment my childhood trauma begins.
I had my bowl of noodles that my mom had just freshly made from the stove in one hand and my cup of juice in the other hand. I placed the bowl of noodles on the arm rest with my hands still holding it tight so it wouldn’t fall on the couch, but as I was trying to put my cup of juice on the floor, I accidentally tilted my arm towards my leg with the hot bowl of noodles and spilled it all over my leg and the minute everything fell on my leg, I screamed with everything in me.
As I screamed and cried for my mom, she came panicking out of the kitchen, asking me what’s wrong and what happened. As I’m crying, I tell her I spilled all my noodles on my leg and it was burning very badly. She told me to take off my pants and check to see if I had a burnt mark on my leg. I went into my room and took off my pants and there it was, a mark that I had made for life that I knew I couldn’t take back, something I would be insecure about for the rest of my life.
I felt like I was dying at that moment because I was young and clueless. How could I do something like that to myself at such a young age? I knew I couldn’t make things change or better. My mom not knowing how to feel or what to do made me feel worse because I should’ve listened to her when she told me to eat at the table.
When I let her know that there was a significant burn mark she took me to the bathroom, saw the mark for herself, and looked like she wanted to cry but didn’t. She grabbed a towel and turned on the cold water and placed the towel under the cold water and placed it on my leg. That’s when the pain kicked in ten times worse than it was before. I was crying more and more as the unbearable pain shot up my legs. As my mom tried to calm me down, she decided to call my granny who lived just downstairs to see what she could do to help. I immediately go down to my granny’s house and lay down on her bed, begging her to take the pain away. Little did I know she couldn’t do that. As my granny put Vaseline on my leg and wrapped bandages around the burn, my mother called an ambulance and told them what happened. She gave them the address to our apartment and then called my dad to tell him to come home.
Five minutes passed by and the ambulance finally arrived. My mom kept telling me to calm down and that everything would be okay. In that moment, I closed my eyes and started praying to God that everything was gonna be okay.
