My Sister, My Inspiration

"The person who stabbed me only got a suspended sentence...I got life"

Those were written in bold letters in the newspaper that I found while rummaging in the package sent by my sisters from Ireland thru a friend who visited today. I couldn't believe that I was staring at the picture of my sister in an International newspaper!

It was a year ago when my sister was stabbed at the back by a psychiatric patient. She celebrated her 30th birthday in ICU. It was ironic but we both celebrated our birthdays last year in strange way.

Despite of the trauma that befall her in a foreign country, my sister took care of me and gave me strength during the time I got terribly ill. She's only two years older than me so we grew up together and attended the same schools in elementary and high school.

She's intelligent (99+ in NCEE/English!) and very sensible woman who grew up practically without an enemy. A silent worker and very studious from whom I learned the value of humility. I remember back in high school my younger sister, Angel, and I would discover on their bulletin board that she's the top in academics and we would broadcast it to the whole family but she remained silent to her feat.

It's also from her that I got inspiration to work on my skills in computer. She taught for quite sometime as Computer teacher in a public high school. More than these qualities that made friends and family admire her was that sense of dedication in everything she does.

I was in school early that morning when I received the call informing me of the tragedy that happened to her. We were helpless to do anything about it because she was thousand miles away from us. My brother and her beau, Tony took care of her since that time my other sister's family (Con's) was also in vacation here in the Philippines.

When she visited last April, she told me stories like how she was brought to the hospital. She tried to remove the knife 3 inches into her back! Her x-ray showed that of the knife and the cross in her necklace. Her room was filled with flowers and cards mostly from unknown people who just sympathized with what happened to her. Oh, she made it actually not only in the front page of different newspapers but also to the radio and television news.

I realized the time she was telling me these stories how brave my sister was. I can't say that she has recovered fully to what happened to her specially that the man who caused her so much pain was only given a five-year-suspended sentence but I knew inside that small body of hers is a brave heart.

I'm thankful also that she has Tony who's making her courageous in this battle. I know time heals all wounds and soon even the scars will fade away.

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