AS TOLD TO BC PIRES

My name is Natasha Lucas and most people don’t believe I have 22- and 24-year-old sons.

I live St Augustine now, but I lived on Park Street, between St Vincent and Edwards Streets, opposite Globe Cinema, till I was ten.

Independence parades used to pass by my feet. Daddy used to sell drinks from a bar in front of the house for Carnival.

I didn’t work in the bar, I was a child.

I don’t know where he used to find a lot of people who were not from the country, from Martinique, England, everywhere, and they would stay in our home and didn’t have to pay accommodation. Daddy would just have them stay over.

I have an older sister, Natalie, and when I was 13, my mother Patsy had my younger sister, Natalia. A very big gap.

Mummy liked (names beginning with n). Natalie is called Nat or Nats. Natalia is Tal or Tally. Everyone calls me Tash.

Things weren’t good at all at home. It was a very tumultuous upbringing.

Mummy tried really hard for her marriage to work, but Daddy was very abusive. That’s the reality.

It was like that till he went away when we moved to Diego Martin. That was the most serenest time of our lives.

Financially it was a bit hard, because he was the sole breadwinner. But it was peace.

He went away for about three years, then he came back and it was bad again, then he left for good.

They divorced when Mummy and my little sister went up to be with him. He (remained) very abusive, but in America, they don’t tolerate that kinda thing. I don’t think she would have been able to leave him here, but, over there, she was working and had more independence.

I was married when I was 24 and then my husband just left ten years after. Jeremy was ten and Zachery was eight. I guess history repeats itself.

It was very hard. There was a good few months when the boys were asking me, “Is Daddy dead?” You would suspect it being another woman, but I never really knew what it was. He just vanished.

I’m not currently in a relationship now. I have enough drama in my life.

I’m waiting for the Lord to send the right man.

We were raised Catholic, but as I grew older, I started to read the Bible for myself. And it came alive for me. I developed my own relationship with the Lord.

I don’t really subscribe to religion because I know it’s manmade.

I want to be myself, learning on my own, letting the Lord teach me for himself. Leading me where I’m supposed to be and the direction where I’m supposed to go in.

How are we to know that maybe the person that was to cure cancer didn’t die by abortion that was at the hand of a human?

I went to Briggs Primary School in Belmont and passed the Common Entrance for Diego Martin Secondary. My older sister was already going there.

I met my best friend, Nicole Alexander, in form one. She died last year of cervical cancer.

One of my favourite aunts died last month, too.

I’ve had a lot of loss in my life.

I know that there’s another side. This is the imperfect side.

And there’s a perfect side where they are happy and have no more pain