I am not the best story teller or public speaker. But I will do my best to tell you my story.
I was born in the US. When I was two years old, my mom sent me to live with her parents. She was still too young to raise a kid on her own and needed to save money for a better future. My grand parents lived in a desert region in central Mexico in a small village 2 hours away from a very large city called San Luis Potosi.
I was 4 years old back in 1987. By this time, I thought my grand parents were my actual parents. By then I didn’t remember my birth mom since I had not seen her since I was two. One day in 1987, my grand parents decided to go to the city of San Luis to run some errands and do shopping.
This is something they would do frequently. They would always take me with them. San Luis Potosi is a typical large city in Mexico with subtle crime rate, especially back in the 1980s. We would go to a location called El Centro: a large historic, paved plaza with shops, cafes, basilicas and conquistador buildings older than 400 years. This was a busy area rumored to be dangerous for the naïve tourist.
This is what I remember: We were walking to a shoe shop where shoes are hand made. As we were in the store, I was eying a Candy store across from this shoe shop. My grand parents were distracted. I decided to run to the enticing candy store to look at a colorful arraignment of chocolates and gummies. My grandparents did not notice me walking out of the store to the candy shop across the shoe shop.
As I walked to the candy store, I was in there for a minute & quickly lost my enthusiasm.. I started feeling lost so I started walking back to the shoe shop to meet my grand parents. As I exited the store, I felt someone grab me very fast. It was an aggressive snatch. My mouth was being covered by a dirty hand that felt like some construction worker. I couldn’t yell. I started crying but this person was strong - too strong. They forced my mouth shut. When I looked behind me immediately, I was being grabbed by two large men. It all happened so fast.
I was too small to fight them. They carried me to a van parked close by and tossed me in the back while one drove and one sat with me in the back to restrain me. They told me to shut the F up or they would kill me. One pulled a knife and showed it to me. I was too scared to scream. I don’t remember too much on this ride where ever they were taking me, other than it was a quiet ride. They didn’t speak to me unless it was to give me orders or tell me to shut up. I didn’t hear them speak to each other. The thing I mostly remember is how terrified I was because I have seen this in movies.
I was driven to a house which appeared to have two bedrooms. When I arrived to the destination, there was a women there who appeared to be their accomplice. I was kept in a room with a bed and drawer. During this time, I was told by the woman and two men that the reason why they brought me here is because they are going to sell me to some people who are willing to pay lots of money for me to kill me, then dissect me to sell my organs to a black market. Apparently they were a part of a large underground network. The woman & kidnappers were very mean and short tempered. Sometimes they went as far as beating me. That happened two times when I couldn’t stop crying.
They were overly paranoid about the neighbors hearing or seeing anything suspicious. Out of the three of them, the woman was the most disturbed. She did most of the talking. They told me horrific crimes they’ve committed before to keep me in compliance. I won’t disclose most of them because it makes me uncomfortable, plus I want to keep this brief and clear. One thing I remember the woman told me is that she hated all children in general, every last one of them. She thought they were pests. Being a part of this gave her pleasure.
This is the most traumatic time in my life. today, I am still discovering how this incident fractured my four-year-old mind. I was kept in a room for what felt like two days with no food. I was only given water.
I am lucky to say that on the second day, these three people were raided by the local police and were all arrested. I was safely returned to my grand parents after a short hospital stay due to the 2 beatings.
However, after this happened, my grand parents and I never spoke of the event again. A week before I turned 7 years old my grand dad died of natural causes. After my grandpa’s death, My biological mother showed up in my life for the first time at my grandmother’s house to attend my grandfather’s funeral. It was at this time that she decided it was time to take me with her and introduce me to the country I was born in: the United States.
I don’t believe my grandparents ever told my mom of my kidnapping. Today I am an adult man in my 30s. I have never talked to my mom about this, let alone she has never asked me. We have a very distant mother - son relationship. I have every reason to believe she has no clue at all that this happened. Maybe my grandparents deliberately kept this from her to avoid causing her stress.
My grandmother passed away in 2013, taking this unspoken memory with her.
This is something traumatic that I only think about and never talk about with anyone because the event is so far back. It still seems unreal. And the more time that goes by, the more distant and unreal this memory becomes. I haven’t talked about this with anyone, not even my most closest romantic partners who I shared everything with, except this. If I wanted to tell my current partner, I don’t know how I would talk about it. I am just afraid he won’t believe me.