Pebbles from Mount Carmel

LISTEN: THE RAPE STORY

She ran to me crying for help but my both hands were covered in my brother’s blood.
A machete struck his head and he was still struggling for his life at the community clinic. I lost my brother that day and that just added to the pain of what I was already going through at school.
“If you don't help me, I have nowhere else to go!” She cried as her blood stained hands gripped my ankle.
She was a fellow girl, but when I tried to lift her off the ground, her legs could clearly not carry her.
The blood on her pink skirt looked like the horrific drawing every artist threw away.
“What happened?” I asked calmly, almost in a whisper so no one would hear.
“I was raped” she replied in the same tone of voice. She sounded like what happened wasn’t worth screaming for.
She got attention at the clinic, but there was only so much a mere clinic could do for a young girl who was raped by two bastards that used torn bacco sacks for protection as if it worth anything.
She was a virgin whose vows were to be said in a fortnight as her father had mortgaged her for a parcel of land.
But that night everything changed.
My conscience couldn't let me see her struggle on so I told her I knew someone who could help.
The world had abandoned her, and her mother said it’s because she didn't wear a tight under a skirt that was closer to her ankles that her knees. “Such disgrace you've brought to the family Rose and you have no place with us.”
That was many years ago.
Now, this Rose realized that she had thorns and that even made her more beautiful.
I walked on the streets on NYC a decade later hearing her name echo louder than a lions roar so I was sure the address was right.
It wasn't hard tracing her, and I wasn't surprised she didn't remember me.
“I'm glad you got to tell your story right from that day at the community center up till now. It’s the scars that make a flawless a beautiful thing.” 
“Oh darling Muna!”  She screamed and hugged me. She recognized me and we recognized the victory in the air that we were meeting at a better time, in a better place than the last time.
I myself had packed my bags and gotten on a plane to a place I knew nothing about because the world didn't understand that a living divorcée was better than a dead married woman. No one saw hope in the breath of life, rather they measured it by achievements; even if those "achievements" could cost that life!
My husband Uche stabbed me and left me treating herpes because of the numerous mistresses he serviced often. I'm not going to kill myself, but it wouldn't hurt to go to a place where I can breathe air away from him. I left my children and I was not selfish to do so. They had a better chance at life with him and when I settle here, I could go back for them.
“You're welcome to join me tonight.” she said
“Let's tell other women that it’s okay to survive everything that was supposed to kill you, its fine to rise from the dust that tried to bury you, and it’s perfect to fly on the wings of everything that tried to put you down.”
Later that night, I was in a room filled with more women than I had ever seen. The stories from the questions they asked reawakened my own pain, and truth is, time never really heals all wounds; it just makes it easier to leave with the pain, memories or scars the wounds might have left. But sometimes what we consider to be wounds are just minor setbacks that set us up for a great come back.
I looked around central park and couldn't help but admire the wonders of the Almighty God and his mind blowing creativity. To think that I hadn't seen this side to life and someone tried to end me was tragic! Parachuting my way out of pain was the best thing that ever happened to me.
I no longer saw just the bleeding girl in Rose that night at the conference, instead I saw a girl who bleed out so others could heal from what cut them.