A Trinidadian Masquerade: A Grandmother’S Plea

By Penny

Penny and her family lived in bitterness and hatred for more than thirty years. It took over their lives and caused much heartache and grief. In A Trinidadian Masquerade, Penny shares some events from her life in hopes others can learn from her experiences.

In this memoir, she uses personal anecdotes to illustrate how God has worked in her life. She explores the doubts, fears, and perplexities she has experienced in various life situations and illustrates how she found comfort and guidance in her faith. Penny discusses how forgiveness played an important role in trying to bring about family harmony.

A Trinidadian Masquerade narrates how Penny lived with mental illness and not some sort of evil caused by magic or witchcraft, a popular opinion in her home country of Trinidad. She tells how she came to understand the importance of taking the proper medication and following doctors orders to help ease some of her symptoms.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 25, 2017
• ISBN: 9781532015298

Penny

Penny currently lives in Union City, Georgia. This is her first book.

Book preview

First my Mother, Forever my Friend

My awesome grandmother, Adelaide Pereira aka, Seechransingh from Venezuela and her husband my awesome grandfather. Edmond Seechransingh from India, both met in Trinidad, and had the blessing given to them; my wonderful mother Maria Pereira aka Seechransingh was born, extremely a delight for her mom, and dad, awesome, daughter; and mother; Indian, Venezuelan, and Trinidadian. She was a beautiful lady, a kind and loving soul.

With the family living in the Island of Trinidad and Tobago my life growing up with my grandmother I had lots of love, I loved her so much and she did the best she could for her daughter and I; then my mother left the Island to venture off to the United States; to try and make a better life for her mother and for me, her father had already died.

Family devastation

It was just mom and I, after my ex-husband at the time, came to join me he got the opportunity from my mother to join us in America, she was the one who helped him come to the U.S. Things began changing after seven years of marriage. Could that be the seven year itch I supposed it was?

We both were too young and immature, just leaving the island and coming to the big apple New York, was a big challenge for the two of us. Being naive and still very young, we had to grow up fast, and we did, but it never helped our marriage. We were like some people said to young to handle the big city, seems like things made a difficult turn-a-around, since my husband coming from a different back-grown and so did I, nothing seems to be going right for us, our lack of knowledge made it very difficult for him and I after my mother died. The bitterness and hatred for thirty years; took over our lives. That kind of behavior affected my beloved mother who died suddenly while trying to bring the family together, even suggesting that we all needed to see a therapist. She tried while she was alive, but nothing changed even when she passed away.

To cover the deep pain we put on ourselves, by staying in that unforgiving state of mind, we all never really listened to her cries. Never realizing I suffered from depression, but my-family member also was sick with the bitterness, and hate that ruled their lives. Seems we disliked one another more and more, which caused me to show more of my anger towards them; we all were acting very selfishly; each and every-one of us played a big part not coming to terms; with the real situation’s and the hurt we all was going through and no one wanted to pay any attention; to my mother’s suggestion. Even though we all lived in different jurisdictions; the anger seemed un-bearable at times it affected our loving Tia Maria, my Mother Maria.

Selfishness made a mark on our family; the damages we all went through continued; and things never seemed to change. My family members continued-with their selfishness and bitterness; even when her wonderful and caring grandmother, as her granddaughter called her, died. Her granddaughter proved to me, and to my mother she was not honest about her love for her grand-mother; I saw it when she never showed up for the memorial service. No matter what was going on with us; this time was very important for the whole family to attend-and put the hate and bitterness aside just this once. Even if my behavior was not becoming, since I just got such bad news about my mother, our Maria.

I think they would have had some kind of compassion for my behavior, since I had just lost my mother, and to know how close we both were, living together for 36years,-that alone should have been taken into consideration,-instead they all acted very selfish; I don’t think I can forget that part of my mother’s memorial service; my hurt was a core feeling of loss.

It was such pain in the present. I felt like I was depleted, I was drained I had to cope with the hurt by expressing it. I will think Kenny and his family would have some empathy for the one who suffered the most. My mother, I started to really believe, there was an enemy, behind them all, a bad spirit controlling them; since Kenny believed, that it was a bad spirit in me, and in the home.

Mother passed away

After my mother’s death I could-only live off the sweet memories of her and hope my family members did the same, with What-little they knew of her, as they never came to see her on holidays-only when passing through to go on their vacations. Her grandson never even visited his other grandmother who lived in Trinidad where he, and his sister grew up for ten years instead him and his father, they preferred to go elsewhere. Mom and I we were out of the picture for all we knew; often-times, we saw their lies and deceit because; they only chose to engage in those negative behaviors; we never saw the love of God in their lives. It amazes me to see after Kenny mother died, he and his only brother Roderick, and his wife Ena who lives in Trinidad; they themselves never got along, like mine their relationship got worst, I could never understand this hate that goes all the way to his brother in Trinidad.

My mother was my rock when I got upset, she stayed calm; like all families we had our ups and downs, still mom gave me the experience of being deeply understood, she was truly supported and utterly loved. I thought I’d spend the rest of my life resting my head on her shoulders.

Christmas-Season

I remember when I bought my mother a lovely recliner and wanted to make her room so special. I had my mind set on black, and white and could envision her sitting in her favorite new chair, which she ended up loving. I made sure the room had all the Christmas trimmings and the Christmas tree. I did this very early to be honest, I did this in-September 2015. It’s like I was having a premonition.

I have stories about my loved one, so do others. Telling all these stories is a wonderful way to celebrate her life, and give as complete a picture as possible of which she was, some have found it helpful in processing their grief to ask friends; and relatives to share one of their favorite stories about my loved one.

I realize one of the new roles I take on after the loss of my loved one is becoming her historian. I may be the main person to convey to others who my loved one really was. The newspapers in Trinidad; which a wonderful child-hood friend of mine then; became a friend of mom Cliff Thomas, made sure she was recognize in the Trinidad papers; the place where she was born, which was a blessing as she knew quite a