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  Amna M.

  Copyright 2013 Amna M.

  If you are reading this then I’m probably gone by now , or , I chickened out and somehow someone got a hold of this. So let me start from the beginning ; this is not to be a suicide note, nor is it to gain compassion and pity , it is merely view on life and the possibility of taking charge of it. In a way it is the last essay I will every write for the drama club.

  Whenever people would look at us they always believe and even tell each other that we became miserable right after the accident , but the truth is we were miserable long before that but they only started to expect us to be miserable or had reason to believe that we must be miserable after the accident, but by all means when I say that we were miserable before I don’t in any way state that we were indeed miserable I only mean that we had reasons that people most likely would consider to be sad and pitiful before the accident but they never really had reason to look that deep before yet felt entitled to perceive us in a certain way afterwards and for the rest of our lives, I’m sure.

  I even remember my mother once speaking about the new neighbors and how she knew they were already informed about us even before we went to greet them at their home, they didn’t blink when they looked at my sister , what is even funnier is that they immediately exclaimed “twins” and “how sweet” after they opened the door for my mother who held a platter of macaroni and cheese , the same platter she always used to make and could only do right according to my stepdad, who used to say my mother was looking for sympathy whenever she used to take us with her to greet new neighbors or to the mall even when we didn’t need to buy anything for ourselves , my sister and I ,that is. He used to say jokingly , according to him after getting chastised by my mother , that in a way the accident was a blessing for her, after all she always did like being the victim of cruel faith , figured if she cant get the attention based on her success and fortune in life then she ought to seek it elsewhere, I didn’t know what was worse saying those things about my mother that were, to some extent I believe accurate , or saying those things about the accident’s affect so lightly in front of my sister who had to carry around the reminder of that horrible day on her face for the rest of her life. Or admitting in a way that my mother was misfortunate enough to have him, I mean he certainly knew he didn’t make anything better to her if he already assume she could only look for attention to her misfortune in life.

  My stepdad, was not a bad man , I often thought to myself , yet he certainly didn’t make that judgment of him easy to keep in mind , he , like many of us , I came to realize years after , had his flaws and burdens that were out of his control, I suppose, or at least to some extent , he also dealt with them in his own way , that unfortunately were destructive , not only to himself but others at times. He chose I suppose, how to mold our perspective of his flaws by his actions towards them, I distinctly remember the night he and mother came from the hospital after the accident and he was discharged , that was the second day when my sister was still in the ICU , he came home with his broken arm , laid on the sofa , his sofa that no one would dare sit on , bent over to grab a cold beer he had just purchased from the grocery , he even left the bag on the floor and I could see some food sticking out , my mother came angrily and snatched the grocery bag and took to the kitchen with some groceries still on the floor so I had to pick them up. He was watching a football match while I was waiting for my mother to finish getting ready and collecting some clothes for my sister, and after she was done she stopped before leaving the living room halfway through turned to my stepdad and said “ we are leaving” for which he replied with” to the hospital?, alright” , at times I wondered about his reply , was he asking or simply being polite and responding , because if he were asking then he must have had another presumption about just where we would be going after what he had done, and I also thought that maybe that was indicative that he was afraid we were leaving him , or maybe he just thought my mother would react that way seeing how it is what most people would assume a mother would do after her drunken husband almost killed her daughter and left her in the hospital indefinitely , and when my mind strayed to the latter scenario I could see that if in fact he thought that even if for a minute then that must be the last time he ever had any respect for my mother , after all his stern remarks about her character only got worse afterwards, along with many , many new behaviors. But the most peculiar one was from my mother who was sobbing when I first got to the hospital and admitted that it was my stepdad driving but she will take the blame and my sister will testify to that as well as she hugged which she very rarely did, I didn’t understand if she wanted to keep it a secret why burden me with the incriminating details and I still don’t. and I also don’t know if my sister knew I was told about the truth.

  My mother seemed to hold or at least pretend to believe in this new found perspective on life after my sister had woken up , extremely deformed , though we weren’t allowed to call her that , my stepdad and I , that is, not that he ever even mentioned anything about her face but my mother made it clear for the both of us the day my sister was to come home not to call her deformed or ugly ,or scary or any adjective really not even to the people when they’d ask how she got to look that way ,and surprisingly a lot of people took liberty in asking that , often after paving the way with a polite request or excuse “ if you don’t mind my asking” was the most frequent, and I guess we could have said something ,I mean the possibility was always there but we too had to be polite and not mind.

  My mother prepared us, or so she thought, on how to deal with this, by first preaching about the true meaning of beauty and blessings in life that come in different ways and shapes. and ironically she often repeated her lecture while doing her make up or hair, she would tell us that beauty was on the inside and that , even scientifically speaking , though she never cited any name of study or anything really beyond the very words “scientifically speaking” , she often told us that there are no measures of beauty and that what shapes people’s aesthetic view on us was based on our character and actions , and that these two were the only thing we ever can control in life, so we had to be very careful as to how conduct ourselves and shape people’s view on us. What I didn’t understand among many things, was that doesn’t her statement already pre-assumes that people shape a view on us? I mean they look at us before we even utter a word to shape or give voice to our inner beauty as she put it and present our character , and even at times we don’t have the chance to do so, I mean whether she likes it or not , or whether it elevates the guilt of still having that man in the living room with the TV sound so high she often had to yell so hard so we can her about her philosophy in life in regards to character and inner beauty. My sister wouldn’t say anything , she would just nod and caress my mother’s hair and tell her she looks pretty after she was done ,which my mother didn’t seem to mind, and always responded with a kiss on my sister’s cheek and an “I love you so much” respond. Funny how my sister’s well behaved conduct in regards to my mother’s outer beauty didn’t render her beautiful enough for my mother to tell her so.

  Around the time my sister and I both turned 15 and were in the 10th grade I was so pretty and popular in school that I decided to join the cheerleading team , after all I most definitely had the body for it and the looks. The outer beauty that is, I remember coming home that day after telling my sister on our home about my decision to join the cheerleading team which she didn’t seem to mind , on the outside at least, and telling my mother that day , which also was met with a silent approval , that is until dinner was over and she came to my room, and explained to me how selfish I was and inconsiderate , she explained how frustrated she was that all through the past 2 years of her teaching us what beauty was and
how people can see our inner light that I would come 2 years after only to want to join an elite group of girls that were pretty and popular based solely on their looks, according to my mother, and that, while the option was mine , if I were to choose to join them it would only mean that I have failed to be beautiful on the inside and no one will truly ever think of me as beautiful on the outside. Strangely enough she had had just told me how the cheerleader were pretty and popular based on their looks only to tell me that no one would ever perceive me or them as beautiful , what is even more funny is that she said all that while waiting for her wrist watch to beep so she can go and wash off the honey and oats face mask she made, and so she did only to come back before I went to bed and ask me if I had come to a decision , and I told her that I was joining the team and at that moment she shut my room door and came close to me and said something about her not wanting to go there but she must