Christina Rickardsson - Never Stop Walking: A Memoir of Finding Home across the World

Text copyright 2016 by Christina Rickardsson

Translation copyright 2018 by Tara F. Chace

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Previously published as Sluta aldrig g - frn gatan i So Paulo till Vindeln i Norrland by Bokfrlaget Forum in Sweden in 2016. Translated from the Swedish by Tara F. Chace. First published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2018.

Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle

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ISBN-13: 9781503901612 (paperback)

ISBN-10: 1503901610 (paperback)

ISBN-13: 9781503900967 (hardcover)

ISBN-10: 1503900967 (hardcover)

Cover design by PEPE nymi

Cover photo used with permission of Heln Karlsson 2016

First edition

I dedicate this book to the three women

in my life who made all the difference,

who gave me the light to find my way in the dark.

You gave me love to handle the hate.

You taught me to laugh so I could always find comfort.

You gave me sense when I didnt understand.

During our short time together,

you gave me enough love

to know what love really is.

This book is dedicated to you,

Petronilia Maria Coelho, Camile, and Lili-ann Rickardsson.

Wherever you are, know that I am always with you.

This book is also dedicated to all the street children in Brazil and around the world.

You are magical and deserve so much more than society gives you.

CONTENTS

NEVER

from the streets of So Paulo, Brazil

STOP

to the village of Vindeln in northern Sweden

WALKING

Foreword

This is the story of my childhood in Brazil, about the culture shock I experienced when I arrived in the forests of northern Sweden and about the loss of the people I loved most. Its about what I remember of my childhood in the Brazilian wilderness, on the streets of So Paulo, in the orphanage. And its about my early days in Sweden, when I found myself dropped into a place and life that couldnt have been in sharper contrast to what I had known. My memories are scattered, but the ones that remain are very clear. I have tended them carefully, repeated them to myself, and written them down to try to preserve the person I was. I created this story, my story. I dont remember exactly how old I was when each thing happened, or how long I stayed at each place. What is time to a child living in the streets? Why would we, I, need to know anything about time? We werent part of society. We existed in a world that had no time for us, that didnt care whether we received an education, whether we lived or died.

Do you ever want to stand on a mountaintop, look out over the woods and the water, take in all the beauty at your feet, and then scream as loud as you can? Scream until you run out of breath, until your throat hurts and your lungs burn? A scream that cleanses the soul, a scream that lets you grieve and release the pressure of everything youve hidden away, all the pain youve amassed, all the adapting youve had to do. I have always adaptedto the laws of life on the streets, to the rules at the orphanage, and then to my new surroundings in Sweden. There are two me s: Christina from Sweden and Christiana from Brazil. It hasnt always been easy to combine these two me s. Several times Ive stood on the top of that mountain, desperately trying to scream, to rid myself of some of my frustration and grief. I open my mouth to let it out, but no scream comes.

The pages you turn here are my scream, the words my amplifier. But most of all, the pages of this book are my truth, my storyof my struggle to survive, of the courage it took to return home to Brazil to look for my biological mother and to find joy in this life. And of the love of mothers, which stretches to infinity and then back again to warm my whole heart.

The Journey Begins

UME, SWEDEN, WINTER 2015

One sunny day three years ago, I woke up afraid. Terrified is more apt. I was terrified of living. Id hit the wall. Everyone knows about that wall. You can hit it at different speeds. You can run, jog, or trudge into it. The faster youre going, the more its going to hurt when you hit it, and the greater your injuries will be. Its simple math, an equation that makes altogether too much sense. I had run straight into that wall at peak speed, as if I were running a four-hundred-meter race.

How did it happen? If youd asked my colleaguesmy bosses and friends at worknone of them would have been surprised. I gave 120 percent to whatever I was doing. The truth, though, was that my life was in chaos. I was having a tough time with my family, relationships, friends, and with myself. So, I tried to focus on what I could control. How to explain an Im-afraid-to-live chaos? Afraid to authentically feel? Afraid it would hurt? Afraid the people I cared about would leave me or die? Afraid that if I stopped running, Id collapse? Afraid of who I was?

I was so tired, so worn out. I couldnt think anymore, and didnt want to. Thinking just led to anguish. I wasnt up to being human. I experienced something I never had before. My body and my subconscious took over, as though my soul had decided it was its turn to take the reins. That was when the nightmares came: I was seven years old again and running for my life; I relived it over and over. If only I were dreaming about scary monsters under my bed. Unfortunately, the recurring images were real. I was dreaming about what had happened to me when I was little.

I realized that I couldnt continue to handle this on my own. I understood that I had two choices: to give up or get myself out of this state. I remember walking into my bathroom and standing in front of the mirror. I looked deep into my eyes. I looked inward. I watched my eyes fill with tears as I realized that the little girl who had run for her life had just kept on running. I needed to stop running and once and for all, for my own sake, process what had happened. I said it out loud: I cant run away anymore. I dont want to run away anymore. I dont want to live like this. And for the first time in my life, I asked for help. For real.

Im sitting on my sofa in my apartment in Ume. I go through all the paperwork Ive received from my father about my brothers and my adoption. It was quite a bundle, and now its spread across the coffee table. Half the documents are in Swedish and half in Portuguese. In all the twenty-four years these papers have been locked in my fathers safe, I have never asked to look at them. Ive never felt the need. There shouldnt be anything in these papers that tells me anything about myself that I dont already know, that tells me anything about my life in Brazil that I dont remember. Ive never felt the need to find out who I am, where I come from, or why I was abandoned. I know who I am, where I come from; most of all, I know that I wasnt abandoned. Kidnapping might be too strong a word to use for how our adoption transpired, but sometimes thats what it felt like.

My brother Patrick, or Patrique Jos Coelho, which was his real name, the one our biological mother gave him, was too young when we came to Sweden to remember anything from our time before. In our Swedish family, that time was rarely discussed. There were surely many reasons for this, but I know only my own. I do know, though, that my brother remembers only one thing from his time in Brazil: he slept in a cardboard box. I confirmed this for him, because I was the one who put him in a cardboard box to try to get him to go to sleep. Whats so fascinating about memories is how certain ones are saved and others are not; some vanish for good, and some can come back. Ive tried, but I cant remember my mother being pregnant with Patrick. It feels like something I would have remembered as a kidmy mothers tummy growing, and my knowing that I was going to have a brother or sister. I dont know whether I have no recollection because I spent most of my time on the streets without my mother, or whether I quite simply cant remember. I only know that one day Patrick, my little brother, was in my life, and that I loved him from the very first moment. I recall how I took care of him on the streets, how I fed him and changed his cloth diapers and made sure he slept sometimes. I remember that he wasnt a fussy baby, and he didnt seem to cry very much.