Surviving started quietly.
Not with hunger. Not even with pain.
It started with pretending.
I began learning the ways of the world not through guidance, but through absence.
How to act small.
How to speak soft.
How to not be a burden.
I became good at it.
When my mum was home, I learned not to ask questions.
Her eyes were tired — not the kind sleep could fix.
When she held my baby brother, she'd hum lullabies that broke halfway… like she forgot the rest of the song — or didn't have the strength to finish it.
I never asked for help.
Even when the rice finished.
Even when I was sick.
Even when I wanted to cry.
Because who would I cry to?
I was already learning:
> In this world, if you're not strong, you're forgotten.
If you speak too much, you're seen as a problem.
And if you feel too deeply… you'll drown.
So I folded myself into the corners of the room,
into the corners of my own heart,
learning to live quietly.
I watched my friends at school laugh about cartoons and toys. I smiled too — but I couldn't join them.
Because by then…
I already knew what a burial looked like.
I already knew what a broken mother sounded like.
I already knew how silence can become your safest place.
---
I remember the first time I felt… different.
It wasn't just about what I didn't have.
It was about what others didn't notice.
At school, we all wore the same uniforms. Ate under the same sun. Read the same books.
But I knew — I wasn't like them.
They had lunch boxes packed with love.
They were picked up on time.
They talked about birthday parties and cartoon channels.
Me?
I had a torn exercise book and a pencil I'd carved with a razor blade.
I was always the last to leave school, waiting… waiting… until the gates closed.
And birthdays?
I stopped counting mine after my father died. What was there to celebrate?
Teachers would smile at me, say I was "too quiet," "too serious."
Some said I was smart.
Yes, I read early. I could recite the news from newspapers at age two.
But deep down, I wasn't being brilliant — I was escaping.
Books became the only world that didn't hurt.
Words were the only things that listened.
And reading was the only time I felt like a normal child.
One evening, I overheard two women talking about me.
One said, "That girl's too sharp for her age. Her eyes look like she's seen something."
The other replied, "Pity. She's not supposed to grow this fast."
But what they didn't know was — I didn't have a choice.
When survival becomes your shadow, childhood becomes a dream you only visit in sleep.
---
I wasn't just surviving for myself anymore.
My little brother — my quiet shadow — depended on me.
But thank God… we weren't completely alone.
It was my stepbrother, my mother's son from her first marriage, who filled the spaces my father left behind.
He didn't treat us like burdens. He didn't complain.
Instead, he did what many adults failed to do: he showed up.
He made sure we ate.
He helped us get ready.
He stepped into shoes too big for a young man — not because he had to, but because he chose to.
He was never perfect — no one is — but when the world turned its back, he faced us.
And my mother, oh God… she was drowning in grief, but she refused to let it kill her.
She would disappear sometimes — not to abandon us, but to gather the pieces of herself scattered by heartbreak.
She would cry at night, but by morning, she had wiped her face.
Even with swollen eyes and trembling hands, she still stood — for us.
> She cooked.
She prayed.
She held us even when she needed holding too.
That's when I realized — survival isn't always about strength.
Sometimes, it's about love. Quiet love. Unseen love.
The kind that doesn't show up with loud words but shows up anyway.
We were surviving, yes.
But we were surviving together.
And that made all the difference.
But my own survival took a wrong turn when I clocked four.
A turn no one saw coming.
Not even me.