Valli : Personal Journal of Valli Pillay, a Living Dead Pandemic Survivor

Entry 40

A few days ago, I spoke to someone who had survived the genocide in Rwanda and went on to survive the outbreak. I asked her if she felt lucky to be alive. She told me she was, but she missed her loved ones. She thought about them all the time. I told her I felt the same way, that it really hurt sometimes, and I wished I had not survived. She said it is normal to feel that way.

She told me she was a child during the Rwandan genocide and only she and her brother survived. She grew up raised by aunts and uncles and got a university education because that's what her parents would have wanted. She got married and had a family of her own. Rémoire came into her life and ended everything she and her husband had built and achieved. Yet again she survived. This time her brother didn't make it. She told me she spent over four years with her husband and kids in the huge forests on the border of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was during this time she realized that feeling the pain of having survived was not due to guilt but to love. She loved those who were no longer with her and she came to peace with their passing and the fact that she could go too. She did admit that having survived one catastrophe helped her survive the next one.

I've been thinking about my conversation with this lady. Yes, I feel guilty and it hurts me. The constantly recurring question is, why me? I can't answer it. Fergie tells me to try. The answer I come up with is others died so I can live. He asked if I'd do the same for someone else. Of course. As much as I fear the living dead and what they can do to my body, I would do it. Without the slightest hesitation. If my sacrifice were to help someone else live, even if it was someone I did not know I would gladly do it. I told Fergie I wasn't trying to be a hero. He asked me if I had suicidal tendencies. I didn't think so. That would be wrong. I mean I wouldn't put myself in danger willy-nilly to save someone. But if there was no other way out, sure. Gladly. Because so many have died so I can live.