Silent screams nobody hears

A student’s reflection on life, grief, and redemption

- By KHEN P. JULIA, 17, Grade 12 Estancia National High School

Friends, let me tell you something they never warn you about: You will die long before your funeral. Not in the dramatic way that earns flowers, speeches, or people dressed in black. You will die quietly, in moments that do not announce themselves. In moments that look ordinary from the outside but split you open from within.

You die when someone walks out of your life and never looks back. When conversations turn into memories and memories turn into silence. You die when the version of yourself you once loved goes missing and you shape us just as deeply as the final one ever will.

I know this because I have died more than once.

I was a problem child back then. I say that without pride and without denial. I was addicted to computers, to the glow of a screen inside cramped computer shops where time disappeared.