“Such a shame.”
“A horrible crime.”
“Ruined.”
“Better off Dead.”
If she’d remembered then, would she have felt virginity is valued above all?
Even more so than self?
Even more than an eight-year-old's joy of trees and flowers?
Even virginity ripped away in violence instead of gifted in love or passion?
Worth more than life?
Ruined?
Am I Ruined?
Did the littles remember and hide even deeper, so they would not be, “Better off Dead?”
Or
Did she think, “If someone did that to my sister, I’d still love her, still want her here with me instead of just Dead and Still in the grave, hymen torn or missing, wasting and rotting in a ruined body.”
Isn’t the girl worth more than the act?
The strength of soul and spirit can overcome the battle, but can it overcome knowing that those who gave her life lumped her in the “Better off Dead” category without knowing she is one of who they speak?
Every fiber of her being stretches toward the Light of Life and Love.
Isn’t she worth more by coming through the Refiner’s fire, weakness burned away and replaced by compassion and hate, caring and distrust, strength and vulnerability, joy and sorrow, purity and soil, more and less, different yet the same, but mostly better off still being here?
