Dear Sakura, I'll Always Love You

Trigger Warning: Suicide and Abuse Mentions

The cherry blossoms shower down. Sakura. I never understood you, but I do now.

You tried so hard to bear the weight of the world. You got good grades, looked after your four younger siblings, worked two jobs, cared for your sick mother and still found time to protest. I asked so many times why. Your mother was an addict. You were your own person, you couldn't look after yourself and five people. I told you over and over, "There are children in the care of an unfit mother. Report her, save them, save yourself." You told me over and over, "I am their mother. I am their mother. I am their mother."

I remember lying awake restlessly, worrying. If that was the worry I felt, what must have you felt? Was your worry multiplied by ten? Fifty? One hundred, one thousand?

I would lie awake, waiting, to see the car pull in to your driveway. Those too bright for night headlights. Sometimes a taxi, sometimes your familiar license plate. She drunk and drove. Now I know that worried you so much, though you never showed it.

I would climb out my window into yours as soon as I saw. I held you as you held her, found hair ties to keep her hair out of her face, kept the children away.

I helped walk them all to school. I would knock on your door every morning and we would walk them down early, going first to preschool, then elementary, and finally, we would head off to high school. You never took the bus, and I never knew why for so long.

When I got my license, I would drive us all. I remember thinking it was almost like we were a family, after all, your mother wasn't fit to be one and my parents were never there, they never cared. It wasn't a silly game or fantasy to you, though. It was life and death.

Oh, Sakura. I remember when I fell in love with you. It was spring. March, the time when new buds form, tight to hold all the color in. Spring is a time of rebirth, when the world becomes elegant in a dress of flowers, redecorated after a cold, long winter. The Earth gets reborn in spring, and you were reborn to me then. I remember how you tucked your light brown hair behind you ear. You had cut it recently, and it fell just past your ears. Your brown eyes blinked innocently, and you laughed.

You laughed. Your life was a train wreck, and you held your head up high and put on a brave face, for me, for your siblings Mei and Naoko and Kiyo and Haru. You never let anyone see how deeply you were hurting. I was a child then. I thought only of myself.

I remember when you had your first charity event. I jokingly suggested a bikini car wash, and you looked so scared. You snapped at me that the time is over for woman to be objectified, scrutinized, looked and taken advantage of. Instead, you organized the biggest bake sale I've ever seen, and you didn't just ask people to bring in desserts, you brought in some too. Well, I say some, but you made lemon tarts, pecan squares, chocolate cake and six kinds of pie. All your siblings and me helped you, and by tomorrow, we would see that wasn't the only thing you made. You made $1,000, and donated it to an honest water charity. Sakura, you were thirteen, and you were already saving others.

You didn't stop there. You protested against shootings, made more then 10,000, pretended you were Christian to go on mission trips and then graduated high school with top grades and went into college to become a doctor. When I asked you why, your answer was so honest, and so real. "Because I like helping people."

Sakura, you helped so many people, yet you couldn't help yourself.

You were still looking after your siblings even then. I remember when you finally gave in. You were so young to be a doctor; twenty six, but you were so brilliant, no one could ignore you. I held you all through the night as you cried. You told me you couldn't leave them, that your family would break apart. You went to Child Protection Services, finally, and then asked... oh my lord, Sakura, you asked to be the legal guardian of your younger siblings. It crushed you when the judge overruled you, your only consolation was you could be in charge of where they would end up. Somewhere good, you hoped. Oh, it was somewhere very good.

I remember the first time I met her. How I hated her. She let you suffer all those years and came only when you were standing on your own two legs? Your Auntie Miya moved to from Japan to New York for them, yet she was twenty six years too late for you. You saw them every day, Sakura, and you did everything you could and more, but you still felt guilty, you told me it was crushing you. I am so, so sorry.

I remember the final straw that broke you. The chances are so impossible, yet it happened. For him to be the head of oncology, where you worked...

You broke down and told me, and it all made sense. Your fear of buses. Your desperation to keep your siblings close to you. I wish you'd told me. I could have helped. Yet you kept all your secrets locked close inside.

Sakura, you were so, so, loved. You had so little time, yet you did so much. You stood up for what was right, made a difference, saved lives.

He was arrested and went to jail. I founded a charity in your name. I have saved thousands of girls from what you went through, and boys too. Every one I see is you.

You went so fast, you moved so quickly through life. You were a shooting star, trying to burn as brightly as you could before you burned out, and brightly you did burn. Every day is a struggle, but I get up because of you. I stand up because of you, and I will stand up to injustice for you.

Dear Sakura,

I'll always love you.