At seventeen

At seventeen I was sent to find out what happened to the woman I had always looked up to, only to find a crime scene, a tv news crew, shocked spectators, police and fireman.

At seventeen my mother called me to ask what I had found out. I froze and stared at the screen. Unable to pick up and answer. Unable to tell her what I had just learned. Hyper aware, that as long as I did not pick up, I gave my mother a few more seconds of life as it was supposed to be. Life as it had always been.

At seventeen I was brought into a police station as a witness to share everything I knew to help them investigate and solve a murder case. Wait, did my cousin really die? I hadn't seen her. Are you sure it’s her? I really think you’re mistaken. It could not be her. This can not happen for real. I’ve seen this happen on the news to other people. I am me. Not other people.

At seventeen I saw the aftermath of femicide before we started to name it femicide.

At seventeen I went to every court sitting to see firsthand how justice is done. It was not enough. It could never be enough.

At seventeen I saw what a grieving mother looks like.

At seventeen I grew a crippling fear that at any given moment everyone I loved could die.

At seventeen I was afraid to pick up the phone when it rang because I thought the voice on the other end of the line would tell me someone died.

At seventeen I got a tattoo to carve her bodily existence into mine.

At seventeen I regretted never telling her how much I loved her, and how much she’d always meant to me. She will never know.

At seventeen I learned the danger of taking the people in your life for granted.

At seventeen I decided I’d rather be sentimental or too much in judgmental eyes than to keep my love or admiration silent.

At seventeen I started taking pictures of people I care about. I’m a horrible photographer, but that is never the point. Keepsakes are. The few we have of her are everything.

At seventeen I learned you don’t get what you give. You get what you get. She was kind, gentle and loved. None of it protected her.

At seventeen I learned how incredibly evil, unjust and unfair life is.

At seventeen a real life devil punched a hole in my gut. Others heard its creation when I howled at her wake.

At seventeen life as I knew it changed forever.

At seventeen I had a cousin who was nineteen.

She was nineteen.

At only nineteen years old she was everything a person is before they become a memory.