Sad
😪
‘As a little girl, I remember running in the forest over dead bodies, hearing gunshots, and seeing people killed by machetes. I was so scared. I don’t think we ever slept.’
“There was no looking back. Kids knew to hide, and run as fast as you could, even if you got separated from your parents.”
‘Every doctor told me, ‘He will be brain damaged. We just have to see how much.’ They wanted to put me under, but I said, ‘If I am put under, I will never wake up.’
“Something felt ‘off.’ She noticed the same thing. Then, things moved quickly. They had never seen this happen.”
‘How old is he?’ I asked. ‘More than 4,’ the relative said quietly. ‘Months?’ I asked. ‘No, 4 years,’ he clarified. ‘This is his twin sister,’ he said pointing to Selena.
“The mother just left them like this,” the relative said. “I didn’t know what I could do.”
‘I was young when I met my husband. Much younger than I should have been, given his older age. His steady job, quiet apartment, and vows of unconditional love lured me in.’
“I heard him say the words, ‘I’m going to get you out of this.’ I don’t know why I believed him, but I showed up to his office the very next week. My life has never been the same since.”
‘He told me he didn’t feel attached to our baby, and he didn’t love me anymore. I secretly hoped I would die in childbirth. My life as I knew it, was completely dismantled.’
“I decided to clean out her bedroom. It was a virtual cesspool. As I was clearing away the reminders of her unwell state, I found her suicide note.”
‘Years after meeting my now husband, I got a call from my father’s new wife. ‘Mommy, are you crying?’ I think she’s on to me.’
“I didn’t need him in my life. ‘We can make it on our own,’ she would say. And I did, for so many years. Then, in early July, he called.”
‘The doctor has my husband bend over, takes one look and says the words you don’t EVER want to hear. WHAT HAS HAPPENED? We were hiking just weeks ago.’
“We came home and I made him scrambled eggs and toast for dinner. He fell asleep on the chair. About 8:30 or so, I thought WOW he’s been asleep for a while now, and I tried to wake him up.”
‘I’ll never forget walking into the hospital on a cold January night, preparing to give birth for the second time. The nurses buzzed me through the doors, but the atmosphere was anything but celebratory.’
“Strength was required to face the inevitable questions of ‘is this your first pregnancy?’ Or, ‘how many children do you have?’”
‘When people ask me why I would ever do something like this, I have a simple answer – ‘I have a uterus, it works, I’m not using it, so why not let someone else who doesn’t have that same ability?’
“I was supposed to be the one to bring them fertility, and yet here we were, almost a year later and nothing.”
‘We heard this loud, echoing bang above us in the bathroom. Thirty seconds later, this scream came from upstairs. I can still hear it to this day. There she was, on the bathroom floor.’
“My best friend entered before me. She begged me not to come in. I did anyways – I had to see for myself. All of her shoes were neatly lined up next to the foot of the bed. Her clothes were hung up, and her beauty products were organized.”
