The Memory of Her is the Reason of What I have Become.

I was wondering the moment I opened my eyes and in search for something. I set my blurry eyes across the window pane where the vivid reflection of the sky was coming through. It was mid – afternoon. I was about to close my eyes and lay down when I heard a roaring cry of someone. I tremendously opened my eyes and jumped out of the bed. But the cry was gone. I asked who it was but no one came answering. I sat beside my study table and reached the book placed in it. I gently skimmed the page where a piece of phrase left me engrossed. “To change course” but it makes no sense right; I placed it back when a voice came to my senses. It was a familiar voice that I’ve heard long way ago but I don’t remember where and when exactly it was, but I believed I knew it all back then. I followed the voice hoping I could prove what I was saying. From my room it led me to the staircase, and right straight to the kitchen sink. From the door where I am standing, I heard the plate breaking, tampering of silver spoon and fork and of other kitchen gears. I knew it was an uproar fighting. I heard an innocent baby cry and with it a ferocious voice of a guy. It was a sobbing then, like a sob of bitterness and hate.

The voice is fading until it was gone. My heart seemed to stop for a little while “Kadi!”(come!) it was a command of a voice from nowhere brought back my senses. I swayed my head and look for it again. I waited down the living area, hoping someone might see me. But for no reason, I started to feel in pain and a tear formed in my eyes. I overheard an extremely tired voice of a girl, but I see nothing. I wiped out my tears and managed to stand with all my limited strength and headed towards the bathroom.

I looked in the mirror in front of me after I had cleansed my face; checking the luggage brought by my tears, I pinched it and clutched my tousled hair. Thirty minutes had passed that I stayed in that position. I heard the exhausted voice again. I ran and sought the little child’s voice. I took a deep breath and footed to the stairway when I shuddered by the loud ring of the office phone. I jumped out the chair with sweats all over my body, eyes shaking and my heart beats faster as if I’m about to lose it. I am dreaming. Suddenly, I realized it was a dream of once reality. It was a friend who left and changed me. The dream that I have witnessed long time ago was torturing me for we weren’t able to fight and for allowing ourselves to be weak.

I survived because of all the lies I managed to carry into my life. I’m always thinking to be normal and as if nothing the world has done to me. But it’s coming back again. The flashback of a friend heartlessly raped by her own grandfather. I remembered as I sneaked inside their house to play, and suddenly unable to move out of fright. I was eight that time. What else can I do? I watched as she was kicking, fighting and sobbing the hatred she felt, the pain she has endured and think of me as the mark of the tragedy she had. I felt sorry, untrustworthy and weak little brat for I wasn’t able to either help or say something about the incident. We did not say anything at all. We thought we did the right thing, and it made her changed. Everything about our friendship changed. I despised him not only because he’s free but gone without taking any resentment because he liked what had happened.

The truth is, the dream, that memory I have about her is the guilt hunting me down. But instead of letting it consume me, I made it the reason to take away the blindfold affixed on my eyes for quite a few years and allow me to see what I should fight for. When I was 17 years old, taking my first college year as a Sociology student, I came to meet two prominent people leading my way to fight and stand for women and children. And with the opportunity at my hand, I thrive to become an advocate of Anti Violence Against Women and Children and still uphold that advocacy until today. I even kept my college campaign shirt and have it as my story cover to remind me that my voice is a powerful tool to empower, stand, and make a change for a better future.

No one deserves any kind of violence, as it continues to exist,  I will stand for them.