A Silent Death, Mourned by Strangers

I am nothing special. I don’t have extreme beauty or knowledge. I live, I breathe, I bleed; just like everyone else.

I knew a girl once; a beautiful girl with long dark hair and green eyes that burned with passion. She looked so strong, so happy. I envied her. I got lost in her eyes and wondered what it was about them that lit up my soul. I asked her one day to tell me what was behind those eyes.

I wish I had never asked.

Behind those eyes lay a truth buried deep within her soul. A concept my mind could never hope to decipher for fear of breaking. The fire that burned in her eyes was a strength way beyond what I could ever have imagined.

This girl, this beautiful girl, who I envied, was a victim. She was beaten every day from the age of six. Beaten to within an inch of her life, and completely broken. At the age of ten she went home to her new foster parents, was tied to a bed and raped by four men for three days straight. She came in and out of consciousness while she felt herself bleeding, all the while trying to figure out what she had done to deserve this.

Her body recovered with just a scar. But she was broken, forever.

She told me the story the day before her sixteenth birthday. She killed herself the next day.

I watched, crying from beside her coffin as her foster parents spoke hollow words. But in my heart there was a sense of wonderment at how she had managed to stay strong for so long. It was that fire behind her eyes that kept her going. It is her life that will keep mine going.

How many kids have to die? How many hearts have to break? How many times do I have to scream?

There are children out there; some young, some older, children who die because we turn a blind eye. We have failed. As a country, we have failed every single kid who is in a broken home or no home at all. As a community we have failed.

As a person, I have failed.

I am nothing special, but I have a cause; a cause worth fighting for. Do you?