Prompt 7.1: If you could be anyone, who would you be?/Writers Muses

 Just Me

As strange as it might seem, I have no wish to be anyone other then who I am. I look back at all I have been through, at the people who have touched my life, and as bad as some of those experiences have been, I'm not willing to give up the good to forget the bad. I suppose in a way, things have to be like this, a balancing of the scales, good and evil, right and wrong, happy and sad, you can't have one without the other. 

I can't say there haven't been times that I haven't wanted to end my life, I've had more then my share of times like that.  I remember the worst of those days, there were far too many of them after Danijela and our babies were taken from me.  I used to tempt death in the days immediately following the burials.  Where once I had done everything in my power to avoid being targeted by one of the snipers watching over the City, after their deaths, I went out of my way to put myself in harm's way.

Years later I would again find my life spared while another died in my place and I would find myself wondering why my life held any more value then theirs.  How do I begin to thank someone who sacrifices their own life for mine, or a mother who puts not just her life, but that of her daughter's below the worth of mine? How do I begin to repay them for caring for me, when there is little enough food and water for one? How do I thank them for staying and sacrificing the quality of their lives to ensure I was cared for?

Even as I know these are likely the most important reasons for my being here, I know there are others I owe my life to. There are people whose memories I am destined to carry in not just my head, but my heart as well, people who have touched me on so many levels, and whose memories would be lost if I were to become someone else.  Danijela, our babies, The Bishop, Sakima and Chance, Patrique, Rick Kendricks, Erin, even Abby and Joe.

I can't run away from my life no matter how much I might want to, I can't escape into someone else's life.  If I've learned nothing else after all these years then that is the one lesson that remains, the memories of the lives of those no longer here are entrusted to me.  The mistakes that I made had consequences whether they were good or bad, they impacted other lives and they deserve to be remembered. I am the voice for those who can no longer speak for themselves and so, in the end, I can only be myself.