Paul H. Williams, Gleaner Writer

Jermaine was conceived during an alleged rape. - File

With tears bursting from his eyes, he expressed his desire to be hugged and loved by his mother, for her to let go of her own pain and fully embrace him. But, don't let his tears fool you; he's no sap. They belie the inner-strength of a man who had succumbed to his own demons, and who at one point in his life was a cold and brutal criminal.

"I am still yearning for my mother to really show me that type of love and compassion, and even come hug me and tell me she loves me, still hungry for it, because I didn't used to get it any at all from anybody, still have that need," he lamented, the tenor of his voice telling how painful unrequited love can be.

Yet, it seems it's going to take a long time for his mother to get the courage to pull him to her bosom. For, Jermaine is the product of an alleged rape, a constant reminder of what happened to his mother when she was 19 years old.

It was 31 years ago when the young woman was lured into a trap by a friend of a friend. She was allegedly raped, getting pregnant in the process. When the time came for her to give birth, she went to her relatives at St Elizabeth. Soon after the child was born, she left him in their care, and that was to be the beginning of a childhood of misery and abuse.

Uunwanted child

Having disposed of an obviously unwanted child, Jermaine's mother took no part in his upbringing, and her relatives did not care either. It was a period of verbal and physical punishment, severe hunger, little or no schooling; school was just a place to get some food.

What you find was a young man constantly searching for himself and for food. He became angry, walking around with a sharpened spoon to defend himself and to eat his food. Many nights he was locked out of the house and, in the stillness of those nights, he contemplated taking his own life.

Jermaine: "Sometimes when I get locked out and out there in the dark I start to think suicidal where the Devil show me a limb on the almond tree and say go around to the back and get a piece of rope, and hang yourself, and a whole heap a time I wonder if I must really kill myself or not, but a little voice always say no, there is better for you in the future."

Wondering about parents

He listened to the voice, but still wondered where his parents were. Then, the market in Santa Cruz beckoned. There, he carried people's goods on pushcarts and sometimes sold miscellaneous items, he who did not know the alphabet at age 17.

About that time, he was out of secondary school, illiterate, deprived, and frustrated. It was time, time to find his mother. He bade Balaclava goodbye and went straight to her house in Seaview Gardens, St Andrew.

His reunion with his mother was the beginning of a stormy life, full of verbal and physical fights with his own mother, and sisters. He questioned his existence, but his mother was not going into it. The hatred that he harboured for her kept spilling over. He blamed her for all the bad things that had happened to him. The resentment was mutual.

The tension between them grew. Lovelessness was tearing Jermaine apart and the attention wasn't coming either from his father, whom he met when he was 12 through an aunt. His mother simply refused to have anything to do with the man.

All that time Jermaine knew nothing of his inglorious entrance into this bitter world. And he was in his mother's house, misbehaving. She knew that he was involved in wrongdoings, but not the great extent to which he was, especially about his involvement in gang rapes. The irony.

Harsh confession

Jermaine: "I used to do it with others, all 30 men with one girl, but I used to have it in mind that some girls that behave like them better than people, I used to decide say I am going to stick them up with my gun and rape them."

It was, however, a gang robbery that went awry that was the turning point in his life. He was convicted and put on probation for three years. He was ordered to remain in St Elizabeth with his relatives for the duration.

After the probation expired, he returned to Seaview Gardens, back to the arguments with his mother and sisters. Anger was still second nature to him, though he had changed his life and got baptised soon after his criminal conviction.

Last year, after publicly expressing his desire to be embraced by his mother, a sister told her he had said she didn't love him. In the ensuing argument, his mother blurted out that his father had raped her. He was devastated, but not surprised. Another sister had given him a hint two weeks before that outburst.

He was hurt. After all those years, he finally realised why he was perhaps not endearing to his mother. More so, he is the spitting image of the man who allegedly violated her.

He forgave them since, but still couldn't bring himself to love his mother. So, he fasted and prayed, kneeling at her bedside, asking God to let him love her.

Jermaine: "Mi grow up hating mi mother and father to tell you the truth ... but by living with mi mother since 1999, mi get fi realise sey mi mother is one of the best women to walk on God's Earth. Mi mother is a very nice woman."

About two years ago, he got the urge to hug her, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.

Strong relationship

"It's like the spirit of God tell me to hug my mother for the first time. I have to walk towards her about three times and turn back before I could do it," he recalled.

Jermaine garnered the courage and hugged her, but his mother did not reach out as much as he wanted her to. "It's just one hand she hugged me with, she didn't embrace me. I had to say to her 'hug me up nuh'. I give her a kiss and tell her I love her, and I do it again, and my mother still didn't embrace me."

There is still a psychological wall between them, and he is dying for her to scale it, meet him halfway, open her arms and squeeze him tightly. "I still wish for when my mother birthday come, or Mother's Day come, I can freely pick up something for my mother or carry my mother somewhere and treat her. I would want to do that, but it seems like that bond is not there, no connection ... it has a deep wound."

Next week, read about Jermaine's run-in with the law and his amazing transformation, in 'From gun to gospel', The Story of Jermaine Part 2.

paul.williams@gleanerjm.com