A RARE SCENE CONTINUES

But you know what it is, though feelings may show so much of hurt and anger. I just have to say feelings are irreplaceable. It is, the traditional things that work, that family is your hero who sees you and that is always there in time you need them, the bottomless love of my parent towards me, although we're no more. I had just realized that every thought of their unconditional love, that feeling of knowing what's best for their kid lights up my day. I know it's there, but I would not just want to admit it. The memories of my parents were my only fallback hope for a better life despite all of those crosses, bows and arrows that struck my back.

You see mom and dad. I never really got to know you, but I know that you sacrificed a lot for me. I know you loved me. Enough with the pep talk, but I just kept them in my head as a reminder to always stay strong. You see, we are who we think the world thinks we are, but sometimes we're not. We decide who we are, when we want and who we want to know. tessy is a girl who is resilient, traumatized and badly affected by a disease that grows worse as the day goes by. The inferiority thing again, not again. It's loafed out reminding her of her brown skin color like she's got the ability to change that. But all this inspirational and motivational talk that I say to myself gets me in a great mood only for me to be reminded of all these things again when I step, out. I am that girl, Tessy, who thinks that it is only the traditional things that work. I mean an enemy you know is better than an angel you do not know, right! Right folks? Where is daddy and mommy? I know your advice and support should've been my grace all this time. Yet death chooses to take you away from me and, me too, I feel like dying. What is all of this that I am seeing? I have never had a good life without people body-shaming me or making me their item of inferiority.

What do I do right now? Hmm, what? I'm working, yet it's not working. You know, working as a cleaner in a mill, some would manage to ask me a question or two, but my gestures always said we're out for you again. I never really gave anyone a chance to know me better. Quiet and always thinking, but this could not resolve my issue, the dilemma, my four o'clock eyes that were noticeable every time that I stared at something for long time trying to grab what was written there. I could speak English very well but could not interpret in writing, it was so difficult. As a cleaner, I always come to work by 12 o'clock, sweep the big hall with the fellow cleaning staff, pack and dump the garbage, but I never said a word to say these cleaners. My pay cut was just as petit as I was, a penny, but I could take care of the basics, because the taxes took barely everything and, after settling for food and other basic priorities, no money would remain for what I wanted to get or even to roll over to the next month. This wasn't friendly but I and grandma still managed.

From weeks to months and from months to years, I moved from thirteen to fourteen and from fourteen, so did the years go by. By and by, when the morning came, I could not step out of my room, let alone my house. I could not bear it anymore that I had all these conditions but still could not break out of it. But how do I break out when I am the only one that knows what I suffer, everybody is avoiding me. The few that came my way, I scared them away. What am I to do with my life at this point? I need a miracle

Who was going to save me from this? I no longer had friends or someone that I could share my problems with. I waned, and I began to wonder. While thinking and trying to while away my whole day that afternoon, there is an emergency in the community square. Should I go or should I stay back. I pondered what's it gonna be? I managed to drag my foot outside and lo and behold, it was a terrifying and sad moment for me, it was my grand mum. She had gone out to pick a few supplies from the farm and on her way back she was hit by a vehicle. She never told me she was out. She was badly injured, and it looked so much like she was in bitterness and pain. Although people rushed to help, she didn't see anyone. She kept calling my name Tessy! Tessy! Tessy! I heard a few people murmuring. A blind old woman is the accident victim. She keeps calling Tessy. Who is Tessy? When I realized it was grandma, I rushed into the mob, struggling in between the crowded people all over the scene. granny I shouted, holding her by the head and hugging her so tightly. It felt like immediately she felt my hands wrapped around her. She just stopped to breathe, she gave up the ghost. I shed tears so bitterly as my eyes started to look around the little food supplies she went to pick up from the farm scattered all over the ground, her fresh red wounds on her leg, her left arm and all over her body, her walking stick lying at the other edge of the road. I snapped, and before I came to realize myself, a flood of tears were rolling down my cheeks. She's gone, I shouted. I shouted so loudly and arrogantly! Despite my grief and arrogance, I see a lot of people volunteering to help. Yes, yes, yes. I kept on nodding even without looking at them twice. She was rushed in an ambulance to the hospital. I joined the bus and when we got there, she was hospitalized and all the effort by the doctors proved abortive. She was rolled in a hospital bed on a covered white sheet and was taken to the mortuary. Such a sad and tense moment for me. I never even had the opportunity before she was taken there. I had a lot of people comforting and holding me back. Some were even surprised that the blind woman was my grandmother. I had to walk around begging the volunteers. I called them Good Samaritans for the help they had shown me, thanking them on my knees. They were pleased and told me not to worry, just that I should get back myself and not sink my whole mind into it.

Did it have to be a day that I was badly hurt before I could talk to someone, tears couldn't leave my eyes as there were more than a million reasons to cry. The same neighbors and people from the outskirts of the city sympathizing with me at the death of my grandmother. I remember two of them trying to get close to me at that moment. Momentarily, I was in open arms to everyone. One of them was a girl and the other was a boy. His name was Steve and the girl's name was Tracy. They're older than me with a four year age gap. But I was a stranger to them, and they still chose to take me in. Then we're students in university but then we're staying off camp. So, they took me to their house, made me a cup of hot coffee and Tracy stood behind with me humming lullabies till I felt asleep. It seemed like I had not had such care in ages. She felt so much like my mum, and Steve went to his room. I don't remember what he did that night, but I knew that this was a miracle, the miracle I was searching for but it had to take a tragic scene to get to me. I can still remember Tracy telling me, you'll be fine very soon. Of course, this was it, the only miracle that I will not forget this chapter of my life, not soon, not ever.