7 MONTHS 13 DAYS

To lose a child is one of the most devastating experiences one might have to go through. It shakes you to the core and changes you. You feel so hopeless and broken. The "If only I’d done this or said that would it have changed the outcome?" and "Did they know how much they were loved and wanted?"

You are left wondering why, knowing that you will never get that answer.

Recently, my sister went to the scene of the accident that took her son Austin’s life. She called me, and I could barely make out the words she was saying. Of course I wanted to rush to her, be with her, and help support her in this time of need, but unfortunately, I knew that was not an option at the time. I would be unsafe going, as the members of my “family” who traffic/exploit and abuse me would be by her side, and I was not welcome to be there.

Over the next few hours and days, my traffickers hunted me down and blew up my phone telling me what a horrible sister I was for not being there for my sister and how I was only thinking about myself, never taking into consideration what she might be going through. All the while, they truly did not care about her; they just wanted to get to me so they could make money over the weekend with all the special events going on around the area and with their plans to sell me.

Late one night, my sister texted me telling me about the flashbacks that she had constantly had since the accident, saying that she is never going to be able to get those images out of her head. I froze, not sure how to respond to her.

My heart broke for her yet again, because what most don’t know, including her, is that when I was a young teenager, I, too, lost a child through a horrific situation. This is something that until recently, I had kept buried, never disclosed to anyone, but my advocate and I never had the time to process it because I was trying to survive.

I knew exactly what my sister was feeling. As a result, my flashbacks have been coming back more and more of that horrible night when I was 7 months 13 days pregnant and was violently raped and brutally beaten, on purpose, to make me lose my daughter. How she was pulled out of me, then shown to me - not breathing - just to make a point that I caused it and was not supposed to be a mom. Then I was left in the bathroom and told to clean up the mess.

I gave it a while and texted my sister back, saying that words can never express the pain she is feeling. I can’t tell her the flashbacks and pain will ever go away, but I hope that she knows she is not alone, and I do know how she is feeling.