Amid an avalanche of life’s challenges, Euphemia always found hope

By Amitabh Sharma

There’s life, and there’s life … for some, it is not a bed of roses, and in Euphemia’s case, it was walking on hot embers.

Her life began with rejection – her mother developed severe postpartum depression with psychosis soon after giving birth to Euphemia. Not in a state of mind to tend for the newborn – the last of five children … the baby girl was sent to her father’s place.

The little bundle of joy, was just thrust into a path strewn with thorns – some which would become poisonous.

Euphemia’s father, a farmer, was now living with another woman and busy trying to provide for the family. While he was toiling in the fields, his partner, who didn’t have any children of her own, had nothing but spite for the little girl. The frustration of not able to bear a child was offloaded on little Euphemia. Life wasn’t a bed of roses for this toddler.

In the age when she should have been playing with toys and studying, Euphemia was kept out of school by her stepmother, who forced to accompany her to the market to sell the produce from the farm that her father worked in.

Euphemia recalled, her eyes brimming with tears, that her stepmother would load some of the produce on the family donkey and some on Euphemia’s head.

“She (her stepmother) would ride the donkey and force me to walk ahead of her as she rode the donkey up the steep hill from home to the main street that led to the market.

“If I stumbled and fell or any of the produce fell out from the basket, or if she and the donkey made it up the hill before I did, I would be beaten up,” Euphemia recalled, tears brimming in her eyes, even after seven decades.

Beatings became a habit of her stepmother, who would also have her do family laundry and clean the house.

This would seem straight out of a Bollywood tear-jerker, an evil step parent unleashing miseries on their step child, whatever that shouldn’t go wrong does anyway – but this was happening in real life.

Euphemia had it rough, if she wasn’t able to complete the many household chores offloaded on the little girl, her stepmother would lose her mind, and complained to her father.

More beating followed … this time from her father.

By the time Euphemia was 12, and she could not take it anymore. She packed a suitcase and sneaked away to her aunt’s (her mother’s sister) home.

Her aunt took her in. After a couple of days, her stepmother showed up at the door, raised a ruckus and walked away with Euphemia’s suitcase. She didn’t have anything.

To add to Euphemia’s misery, she had fallen behind in school and was barely able to read and write. This void would haunt her all her life.

Note: The name Euphemia is inspired from Saint Euphemia, a martyr whose story reflects themes of faith, perseverance, and the power of conviction. Special thanks to Dr Garth Rattray for sharing the story.

• Part II: Euphemia – soldiering on, despite what life threw at her)

(The column Postcard from Jamaica appears every Wednesday.)

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