I stood there numb, replaying our last conversation in my head.
My words. My cruelty.
After the service, as people slowly dispersed, my aunt pulled me aside. Her eyes were red, but her voice was steady.
“Now it’s time for you to know the truth,” she said.
I looked at her, confused.
“Your sister made the biggest sacrifice of her life for you,” she continued.
“Your grandmother left an inheritance—enough money for one of you to study and build a decent future. Only one.”
My chest tightened.
“Your sister was invited to a prestigious law school,” my aunt said. “She was accepted.
She could have gone. She could have been a lawyer.”
The world tilted.
“But she declined,” my aunt went on. “She decided you would use that money instead.
She believed you deserved it more. She believed in you completely.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“She never got a proper education or a good job because she wanted you to have it all,” my aunt said softly. “It was a family secret.
She forbade everyone from telling you. She said if you knew, you’d feel pressured. Or guilty.
She wanted you to succeed freely.”
I sank into a chair, shaking.
“All those years,” my aunt whispered, “she was proud of you. Every exam. Every achievement.
She carried your success like it was her own.”
I cried for days after that. Not quiet tears—violent, choking sobs that left me empty. Every memory replayed with a new meaning.
Her tired smiles. Her silence. Her pride when I succeeded.
And my words.
“Go clean toilets.”
Now I study twice as hard.
Every casebook I open, every lecture I attend, I think of her. I am becoming the lawyer she never had the chance to be—not because I’m brilliant, but because she chose me.
I can never apologize to her. I can never tell her I understand now.
All I can do is live a life worthy of her sacrifice—and never forget that the person I once looked down on was the one who lifted me the highest.
