The Life I Didn't Lose

Hi, my name is Ava Martins. Ava means “life.” Such a pretty name, right? My mother gave me that name, and as beautiful as it sounds, my life hasn’t always been as beautiful as my name. Life hasn’t really treated me as fairly as I would have loved it to, but I’m grateful to be able to share my story.

It all started when I was in secondary school, in SS1. I was just 13 years old. I wouldn’t really say I was born into a rich family, but at least we were managing, and we could afford some of the little things we wanted. My parents took really good care of me, especially since I was an only child. Life was so good back then.

At that point, you could say my life was as beautiful as my name.

One day, my dad landed a bad business deal, which caused him to fall deeply into debt and stripped our family of almost everything we had. One could even say that was the turning point of my entire life for the worse.

My parents struggled so hard to pay my school fees. They kept promising me that everything would be fine and that we would bounce back, even stronger and better than before. I believed them. I kept having faith that somehow, everything would turn around for the better.

My mother had a salon, but it wasn’t very big. As time went on, business started to decline. People stopped coming to have their hair done at my mum’s salon. She could no longer afford to pay her workers, and because of that, she eventually had to shut down the salon.

Things became more and more difficult for my family. At one point, I was even sent out of school because my fees hadn’t been paid on time. As if that wasn’t enough, I started hearing my parents argue at night, calling each other insulting and terrible names. I would hear words like “useless,” “good for nothing,” “bastard,” and many others. I slowly watched my family tear apart right in front of my eyes. Still, I kept praying and believing in God to fix everything and restore my family.

At 15, I dropped out of school because I could no longer keep up with the school fees.

My final exams were fast approaching, the fees kept increasing, and things were already much worse than before.

At 16, my parents could no longer afford the rent, so we had to move into a much smaller house. It had just one living area and one bedroom, so we all had to manage and make do with what we had.

I even started going from place to place looking for a job. I wanted to find something, anything, that I could do to support my family, even if it was just working as a salesgirl.

Eventually, I got a job as a dry cleaner. I was so happy because, for the first time in a while, I felt like I could actually do something to help my family with the little money I would earn.

Immediately after receiving the news that I had gotten the job, I rushed home to tell my parents the good news. But when I entered the house, I saw my parents arguing. They were so caught up in their argument that they didn’t even notice when I walked in.

I heard my dad accuse my mum of sleeping around for money. They argued and argued until, eventually, my mother ran out of the house.

Hours went by, but there was still no trace of my mum. I still couldn’t bring myself to tell either of them about the good news.

It was 9:44 p.m., and my mum had left the house at 4:13 p.m. The house was painfully quiet. My dad and I didn’t say a single word to each other throughout that entire time.

Then, at exactly 10:03 p.m., my dad received a call from my mum’s number. The information he received from that call left both of us in shock and changed our lives forever.