Who Rescued You? The Story of Emmanuel Jal and Emma McCune
Has someone ever rescued you? When I say ‘”rescue,” I don’t mean rescue in the sense of “save the day” or “self-sacrifice.” I mean rescue in the sense of changing, or even saving, a life. As trauma specialists, that is what we ultimately hope to achieve with the children we see. Our central goal and intention in trauma work is to engage in actions that redirect, repair, and restore children’s lives.
Most of us in helping professions probably experienced one or more life-changing events that altered the course of our lives for the better. It’s those people in our lives who affected us in deeply positive ways at critical moments are also those who profoundly impacted our worldview and set us on the life-long path to pay it forward to others. Emmanuel Jal is a very dramatic example of an individual whose life changed in an instant when someone liberated him from a world of violence, trauma, and war. Jal is now a renowned musician and a former child soldier; his life is a tale of redemption, but mostly it’s about salvation and a pivotal moment in his life when he was rescued by British aid worker, Emma McCune. Here is Jal’s story, as he tells it in his own words:
My Name is Emmanuel Jal, and I was born in war torn Sudan.
I do not know when I was born, but I believe I took my first breath of oxygen sometime in the early 80s.
My country has been at war for over a decade. I am from southern Sudan where the people are tall and beautiful with smooth skin similar in colour and texture to that of roasted beans.
At the age of seven I, along with thousands of other children was taken from Sudan to Ethiopia, to learn to read and write. Ethiopia at that time was like a city run by children; there were over 30,000 of us in total. During my time there, I learned 8 languages, but as time passed we learned that we had in fact been bought there to be trained as child soldiers. I escaped from the growing army when people started to lose their vision and started fighting one another. Our common enemy being our Sudanese people from the north. Unfortunately I did not reach home because a number of serious events occurred as we embarked on the long journey home.
I ended up in a town called Waat. It was here that I met aid worker Emma McCune. She rescued me, by disarming me and smuggling me into Kenya. Whilst in Kenya Emma put me into school and adopted me. Emma said, “OK, I’ll take you to school.” That’s what I’d been praying for. She smuggled me onto a flight to Nairobi. I hid among the bags and when we got to Nairobi it was difficult and strange — a different world. But I adjusted to it.
Unfortunately a year after I was rescued Emma was killed in a fatal car accident. After this tragedy things became increasingly difficult for me. I turned to music as a method of therapy and started singing in church. I discovered I had a talent for music at the age of 20. [ from Jal's Facebook page]
If you have time, take a few minutes to watch a film of Jal’s 2009 talk for TED and listen to his tribute to Emma McCune:
My childhood was by no means as dramatic or crisis-oriented as that of Emmanuel Jal, but it had its challenges. My family life was stable, but it was not a childhood of privilege or without stress. I grew up one street over from public housing; if you have read the book Riding in Cars with Boys, you have read about the actual neighborhood in which I lived and struggles of those who grew up in that neighborhood. I was fortunate to have parents who did their best to help me feel safe. Luckily, I also encountered a number of individuals who recognized my potential at critical moments during my school-age years. One was sixth grade teacher Mr. Harrington who taught me to have a voice and the courage to express myself. Another was a high school teacher Mr. Granucci who saw in me the potential to go to college, something that rarely happened for most teenagers in my neighborhood. Mr. Granucci literally sprung me from high school detention hall [yes, I did time in detention] and convinced me I could tackle subjects like calculus and Latin. I bless Mr Harrington and Mr. Granucci for believing in me—by the end of high school, I graduated fifth in my class of over 500 students.
Emmanuel Jal was a child soldier, immersed in war and terror, but his story is not too different than some of stories we encounter with children we see who survive violent homes or neighborhoods on a daily basis, even in the US. But more importantly, we all have had to survive something in life and we all have been rescued, one way or another. So, who rescued you? You are here today because someone cared, even in some small way. And you may have made a commitment to help others because that someone made the same commitment to help you at a critical moment and ultimately changed your life. Just like Emma McCune did for Emmanuel Jal– and it made all the difference.
Be well,
Cathy Malchiodi, PhD, LPAT, LPCC
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I read Emma’s biography before learning about Emmanuel Jal. I then saw him perform at Womad and in Bristol. Meeting him and seeing his compassion and lack of bitterness was humbling. Since then, I have read stories of other ‘war children’ too. It makes my life seem so privilaged and the need to campaign against the destruction so much more important.
On the evening of my young grandmother’s death, my mother had refused to kiss her goodnight. Like many teens, my mother had been pouting, probably about something trivial. Seven hours later, a brain aneurysm took her mother. This, along with the fact my mother’s stepfather climbed into bed with her the day after the funeral, would forever change my mother. And it wouldn’t be for the better… though she could’ve, at some point, with the courage to heal, have stopped her madness. I can remember as a child, when I’d look at my mother, it was if I were among strangers. She would seldom speak or look at me and my sister, and if she did, words were harsh and eyes piercing. Often, on the phone (those wall phones that kept you in one place) smoking cigarettes, she’d wave me and my sister away if we asked for something. If she needed something, she’d snap her fingers. She often went psycho. I remember a fireplace, my mother hurling books, teddy bears and wooden blocks into it, as I stood, shocked, confused and crying. I don’t know what I did wrong. And she didn’t tell me. Just went from calm to manic uproar, stuffing fireplace with my favorite toys. When I cried to my dad about it, he made jokes, downplayed it. I didn’t understand then, that this would be his part to play. In the mid 70′s, my mother had a nervous breakdown. It began at home and ended up on the floor of an nearby emergency room. I remember my father whispering and my great-grandparents telling me, “You’re mother needs help…She’s not doing well.” As if they’d just noticed. For weeks, I had to care for my younger sisters, round the clock. My dad lost himself at work, as usual. I have never seen a human consume more coffee. Or eat meals so fast. It was as if he was afraid to relax, for even a second, or he may lose a chance to “make more money.” During my mother’s breakdown, I kept things flowing. I cooked, cleaned and played soccer with my sisters. I often wondered if my parents realized they had saddled me with incredible caretaking responsibilities. Or overwhelmed us with their pain and problems. Not six months went by that they weren’t fighting, suing, getting sued by or angry with the world, including members of their own families. Everybody was suspect. Even people they were friendly or friends with. Nobody could be trusted (commonly seen in persons who have suffered childhood traumas). After my mother was released from mental ward, nobody ever spoke about the breakdown. You’d be verbally and physically abused if you even dared to ask. A few years later, my mother got a job working with the coroner’s office, as if a metaphor for her decaying soul. Soon, my dad accused her of having an affair with some guy she worked with, which was funny, since my father was having an affair with this guy’s wife.
I once saw my father point a loaded gun to my mother’s head. He was standing in the bathroom, making her face the mirror. I was young, but old enough to wait for the pop. I grabbed my sister June and ran to a neighbor’s house. When we heard sirens, I ran back home. That’s when I saw my dad flash his badge. Immediately, the cops huddled, spoke in hushed tones. Then they split. That night, my parents ignored June and I while they watched Love American Style. And though I waited, no explanation or apology came. We were expected to live with the pain. And not utter a word. To anyone. Ever. Or we’d be “cut off”. That’s the problem with some rich and abusive families. They think the pain and suffering they inflict on others, even if it’s rooted in their own unresolved pain, can be covered with threats of being “cut off”. They don’t see they’ve cut themselves off, of reality.
My parents bought a bakery and ice cream parlor. Early in the morning, I would get up with my father and help him bake brownies, cookies, breads and serve customers. My father was a different man away from my mother. He was fun. Always joking. That may have been the problem. He was seldom serious. Never took charge or resolved any family crisis. Never handled his own pain from childhood, or traumas he was dealing with. My mother would mix encouraging and condescending words, as if she were born to drive one crazy. “You ungrateful brats,” she would say. Two hours later, she’d make cookies or invite us to watch one of her favorite TV shows. When I was 18, I enrolled in the furthest college from my home. I returned home briefly. The night I arrived, I found my younger sister slumped against the garage, pale and vomiting. She’d taken a bottle of aspirin. I ran inside the house and found my parents eating popcorn and watching Johnny Carson. “June (not real name) took some pills,” I shouted. Without looking up, my dad said: “She’s an idiot.” Reaching into a bag of M’M’s, my mother glanced up and said, “Oh… you’re home.” I wanted to smash the television with a golf club, not that anyone in my family played golf, but it seemed a good weapon for the cause. And I wanted to scream, “What is wrong with you people?” “Who and what are you?” But as I watched their stone faces, a long rope of sorrow entangled me as I realized they could care less how they were crippling us with the slings and arrows of apathy. I flashed to the time I had taken a bottle of pills and instead of taking me to the hospital; my mother loaded up my sisters and me and took us to a drive in movie. Upon hearing me wretch into paper bag she turned and said, “could you stop making so much noise?” After she was finished with her large popcorn, Almond Joy, diet coke and the paper bag had become a soaked sheet in my quivering hands, she turned and handed me the empty, greasy bucket. “Here use this,” she said without looking at me.
Years later, I left home, but was still helping my parents in their multiple buisness adventures. I had my own children now. I remember the day my son was diagnosed with severe autism. I heard little encouragement or concern from my parents. No offers of help, though they were worth millions. All I heard about was other people my parents were hiring, firing, suing or keeping an eye on. It was all about money. Making money. More money. They were obsessed with making money, as if crisp bills and big bank accounts would funnel the fury of living with unresolved pain. One afternoon, the first day of my autistic son’s pre-school education, I came into my parent’s restaurant in hopes of receiving some parental love. I heard my parents arguing behind closed doors. The doors flew open and my mother barreled towards me. “What time did Alison show up last night?” she asked in an interrogatory tone. She wanted to know if the waitress had left early. “Look Mom,” I said, swiping tears from my lips. “I don’t feel like answering questions right now.” As usual, nothing mattered outside my mother’s zone of perceived importance. “We’re short twenty dollars in the till!” she went on. I was stunned. “Mom, it’s Jamey’s first day of special education,” I murmured. “Can we discuss this later?” My mother, without a trace of compassion on her face, clenched her hips and cocked her head. “Here we go again,” she said in a mocking voice and rolled her eyes. “Poor Kimmi. Me and my handicapped child. ” The words dehydrated the flow of incoming tears and once again I wondered why I hadn’t learned from childhood, that this was a SADISTIC, weak woman, a mother I could never count on for empathy and encouragement, because whe had never taken the time to deal with her own pain. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” she continued. “The whole thing is just a terrible tragedy.”
Then, as my mother’s unresolved traumas evolved, and as if my mother wasn’t satisfied with hurting herself and others, she did the unthinkable: After my great grandma died and my mother’s demands for her money went rejected by my grandfather, my mother, now a master manipulator, since she’d been manipulating her own pain for so many years, suddenly announced my grandfather molested my sister and I when we were little, and that we should “immediately see a psychiatrist and SUE him”. I found this odd, considering we had just spent the past two decades—every Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Halloween, birthday and Grandparent’s Day with this “wonderful man” who was now our monster pervert grandfather. “This doesn’t make sense,” I argued. When I repeatedly told my mother I had no recollection my great grandfather molested me or “june”, she downgraded her hyper verbal mood, got that pinched look around her mouth, squinted her eyes and spoke in slow, deep tones—the kind she got when she was gearing up for vicious. “Just pretend that you’re in a show and when the curtain goes up, you act. Then, when the curtain goes down, you walk off stage and go on with life.” I thought I had witnessed and heard it all, but this was a new low. She could tell by my face. “I’ll pay for it,” she added, as if that was her only way to win you over. From there, whenever I’d protest, my mom would insist June and I were too little to remember, but we should “try and remember” because it would show what a monster our “perverted” grandfather is. I found it particularly interesting that going to a shrink wasn’t ever intended to “help” my sister and I, but only a temporary thing so we could paint a picture of a monster so my parents could sue. My mother resorted to what I call planting. Tiny injections so you’d think her way. “Repressed memories of molestation can really hurt a person,” said my mother. I could see June, eyes glazed, sharing the psychosis, was falling for it. Oh, no, dear God, no, I thought. I wanted to slap all of them. It was like being with people whose souls had been hijacked of logic and reason. My mother began her crusade of control: “And if you cared about your great grandmother, you’d do this.” No matter how many times I’d protest, say We can’t do this: We shouldn’t do this: It’s wrong— it fell on hardened hearts and deaf ears. I was made to feel like an outcast. A traitor. I was now a threat because I had dared to expose the reality of their symptoms and behavior of people who choose to live a lie. If only people could see how damaging it is to avoid dealing wtih childhood traumas. By avoiding truth, some persons just happily go about their lives hiding, scheming, mocking, making small compromises, hurting others, making bigger compromises, tolerating others who do same, and hurt themselves until they finally go completely nuts and play victim, the day truth comes knocking. Then, they go into super attack mode, as they DENY themselves the OPPORTUNITY of new life. New thinking. Fresh beginnings. Joy. Peace. Freedom. We all the ability to avoid tackling pain. Experts say it takes courage to heal. Indeed it does.
i m just wanna be english man like you
There are millions of children in the world who experience adverse childhood trauma and I wish there are millions of Emma McCunes to save them at a critical moment and instil resilient.