Have you ever stood on a beach full of people, watching them watch a teenager drown in the sea?

I did, I was 16. I remember it vividly tonight, it was another memory I had supressed and locked back to the dusty shelves in my mind.

I remember that I was walking in the beach, heading where my friends were settled. The panic, screams and yellings made me stop in my tracks, confused. That was not something I had seen before, so many people full of panic. I began looking around slowly, trying to understand what was going on, why was there so much panic. Then I remember gazing into the sea, seeing a hand barely above the water; I had known instinctly what I had seen before my brain could make sense of it: someone was drowning in the sea!

Something then came over me, I was moving in auto-pilot, tossing my towel and stuff to the sand, yanking my clothes off and walking into the sea to reach that person. I dove into the sea, coming across with my friends, we looked for that drowning person with the hopes of it was not really that late to save her. We were 16, we were 17. We were the only ones who dove into that sea to save somebody else while all people watched.

I always had a very serious dislike about onlookers, the people who has the power to change things but do not change the things because they are selfish, their comfort zone matters to them a lot more than another human/living being can. Tonight, I was thinking about why I could not tolerate onlookers the way other people can, be diplomatic towards them. Then I remembered this supressed memory, I remembered the panic I felt because nobody was helping. ”They will let her drown, they will kill her,” I remember thinking in that moment, walking into the sea alone.

That person was a teenager just like we were, she was waiting to hear from the university she had applied. I had never known her, her family said she was a gentle soul, they chose to watch her die in cold blood.

We sat on the beach that day with my friends, after God knows how many minutes of eternity, grown(!) men got into the water, to look for the corpse, basicly kicking us out of the sea. We sat down on the sand, watching them try to find the dead body because coming across a corpse while swimming is not something people fancy, right?

I remember one of my male friends staring at me, as if I had lost my mind. We were wrapped in our towels and he asked me what I was doing in the sea. I told him that I was looking for her because nobody else did. He said I had yelled at a grown man back in the beach. I had literally no memory of that, I probably looked at him blankly, wondering what we were even talking about. He said the man told me to stay back, because I was a girl and I yelled back to him then what the heck he was doing with it then except telling me not to get in and watching someone else drown? He was taken back with my yelling so much, my friend; we laughed about it, sobbering quickly. He told me that he was proud of me, for my bravery. I never thought I was the brave one, I only saw cowards in that beach but I was not a part of that herd.

Another friend said that they found her, they got her out of the water, she looked bad. He said that he was glad that we were not able to find her. ”It would probably haunt us forever,” he said before falling into a deep silence. A lot of things haunt us down, we supress whatever we can and as long as we can. Yet these memories will always resurface to haunt us back down.

Now, as an adult, I have been thinking of that day. How one moment can change our perception so much. How much we can change in one day, in a few minutes..I am proud of that fearless, self-less girl who walked into the water, knowing she was never strong enough to save a drowning person but willing to try.

It took me two or three years after that day to be able to sleep in pitch dark. I slept with a nightlamp or simply lights on for a really long time. It was just another scar from the supposed-to-be-grown-ups. You can’t trust anyone except yourself. People will always be selfish, prefering to watch someone else drown in cold blood rather than risking their lives. Would there be a risk though, if there were more of them working as a team to save one person? Even now, I find all of these people guilty of her death in my consiousness. What a hypocracy, many of them always bragged about their swimming skills, how skilled they were in swimming. They all blamed her, said she should not have gotten in the sea if she did not know how to swim that well. As usual, they blamed the victim, the dead victim who would never be able to raise up to defend herself. None of them blamed themselves for not saving her. I learnt about victim blaming, fragile yet pompous male ego. I learnt how further people can take things up to cover up their own cowardice.

I still believe that if a few of them got into the water with us that day, or a bit earlier than us, that girl could be alive. May be now she would be a mother teaching her kids about kindness, the importance of helping others. May be she would be someone that you smile every day. She could be your friend, your neighbour, your daughter-in-law, your collegue..Who knows?

I am sorry that we could not save you that day, I am sorry that you had to die in fear, alone.

I hope one day I can let go of that memory. Until then I will have to deal with my own self-blame.