Thank you....

....for the happiest month of my life.

As the month draws to an end, I thought and thought about what to share with you and then I decided to share what the month of May means to me.

May means the whole world to me.

It is a constant reminder that I would always come out of whatever situation I go through in life victorious and strong.

No phase in life can see me finish.

As a seventeen year old girl, I was raped on a dreadful day in the month of May.

I thought I could deal with it and just keep my mouth shut but I couldn't.

I called my mother as soon as it happened.

Some time ago, someone asked me why I was so quick to tell my parents about the incident and that I should have kept it to myself but I'm grateful I didn't keep it to myself.

Without my family, I wouldn't survive that period of my life.

Sure, I was beaten up the first time everyone in the house heard about it because my parents were a tad bit disappointed at their baby girl.

Who wouldn't be? Even I was disappointed at myself.

For trusting so easily.

For taking advantage of the little freedom my parents had began to give me.

May made me watch my mother cry and I stood there watching her because I couldn't dare touch her.

She cried and shook with fear as the doctor took me in to examine me.

I could only say to her “I'm fine, I promise I'm fine” but even that felt so hard to say.

I spent the longest days at the hospital in the month of May as a seventeen years old girl.

I went from one check up to another.

I had to sit through the whole process as the doctor explained to me what had happened to my body and prescribed drugs for me to take.

I wasn't scared when he said I was torn badly but I was scared when he mentioned getting a pregnancy test.

I know I went blank at that moment and I just sat there trying to read the words from the doctor's lips.

Would I keep the baby if there was one?

When he asked this question, I almost ran under the table, I was so scared that I was shivering.

Oh, I was so scared, so scared.

I have never been so scared in my life.

He said I couldn't know if there was a baby until it's almost three weeks so I would have to come back to the hospital everytime till then so they would know as soon as it was detectable.

Every morning, before I took my bath, I would watch my stomach from the mirror in bathroom.

Was it growing?

What if there's a baby?

I didn't want to have that monster's baby.

I didn't want to have the baby of someone who raped me at gun point.

I didn't want to look at my child and remember those bad memories.

What about my education?

What would my friends say?

I contemplated suicide, more than once every morning.

I would lift a knife to stab myself but the thought of my twin brother would make me drop it.

I couldn't commit suicide because of my twin brother.

If there's anyone I hold unto as a pillar in my life, it is my twin brother.

He sat by my bedside every day, watching me.

He would ask the same question every ten minutes “Do you need anything?”

All I wanted was to be alone but I couldn't tell him so I would respond everytime “I just want water.”

He would come back with a cup of water and catch me crying.

He would pat my back and tell me that I would be okay, with time.

He never asked how it happened, never asked me to relive the moment, he never asked who it was, he just opened his arms and let me heal slowly.

My parents forgot their anger after some days and got used to checking up on me every morning and night.

I would always complain that my dad and I do not have that much of a beautiful relationship but I know he loves me, he just never says it out.

Throughout this period, he assured me through his actions that I was going to be fine.

Every night, he would ask my mum if I was doing better than the previous day.

He told the police to stop seeing me as talking about what had happened to me wouldn't help me heal.

He suggested that I be given a little space to heal properly and become whole again.

The month of May as a seventeen years old girl dealt with me in ways I couldn't ever imagine.

Painfully, it dragged on slowly and everyday seemed like it would never end.

I had to go through the stage of having this monster in my DM asking me if I didn't like what he did.

Accusing me of lying that I was a virgin when infact I wasn't one just because I didn't bleed.

I had to go through someone I considered a friend telling a male friend then that I was open and now a woman so any man could have me.

I went through all of that and didn't break.

Sure, it left a scar but I'm healing from that now.

Now, May no longer gives me the creeps like it did few years ago.

May is my happiest month because it reminds me of how well I can survive during tough times.

It reminds me that I am a warrior, a warrior that went to war against suicide and depression and won the battle.

Everytime when a decision seems too tough to make, I remember May.

Everytime I'm at my lowest, I remember May.

I still watch my stomach from the mirror in the bathroom, not because I'm expecting a baby bump to pop up somehow but because it has become a habit.

It reminds me of how four years ago, I was a young naive girl who spent a whole month in bed either at home or at the hospital.

I still ask myself everytime, would I have kept the baby if there was one?

I know one thing for sure, I would have survived it and I will survive every other rough May in my life.