The Way It Is, The Way Life Is

The Way It Is, the Way Life Is

I found her box and wondered whether she would forgive me for not saying good bye. Finding it made me obsessively question why people do what they know is wrong, and if they ever feel guilty for not listening to that inner voice that can do nothing more than point them in the right direction and leave the decision up to them. People have been given the precious gift of life, yet they choose to take it away from those who appreciate it for the glorious one chance opportunity it is. Would my moral values forever be based on the idea of kill or be killed, or live and let live? It was the day she didn't come home that my whole perspective of the world and its people changed into a nightmare of these strange thoughts and feelings.

I can barely remember how sweet her dark hair smelled, and how I felt a connection between us. My aunt Monica was a complicated young woman who devoted her single life to ministry of God. Some people say that I look like and act like her in many ways. When my aunts and uncles look at me, to them I am her reborn. I wish she could have seen me grow up into the understanding young woman I am today, but I guess life is not always fair. I think back to when she was with me and how I used to take her food right from her tiny mouth and eat it. She was always so amazed at how open I was as a little girl. The one question I constantly ask myself is what it would have been like if she was still here. Would I remember her face as it aged over the years instead of remembering it when it was perfect and unaltered by nature? Now I will never know.

That fateful week, she was visiting her favorite chapel in India. She used to always take trips to this one small town and she was used to being isolated from any phones, internet, etc. She was praying in a temple and someone was watching her. He attacked her so that he could rob her, but fortunately she escaped and ran for help. She sought help in the U.S. Embassy to tell of the incident and they offered her a trip back to the U.S. She refused to be scared out of the town she had been coming to for years. She called home one last time and told her family that she was alright, but she never mentioned her attack. They never suspected that they would never hear her soft voice again. The days kept passing, but her calls never came. One day they finally got a call, but it wasn't the one they would have ever expected to get. The Embassy called and revealed a horrible truth. Monica had been murdered. Her death was so gruesome that I can't mention it