Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: GRACE (08/24/23)
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TITLE: Lioness | Previous Challenge Entry
By Hannah Gaudette
08/26/23 -
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In middle school, no one could beat her on the swim team. In high school, she was not only untouchable on the ice, she could land any role she wanted in theater. She somehow juggled those commitments with dancing—with impeccable poise.
Though she was among the most popular—and beautiful—girls in Redwood High, she made many enemies. Too many.
The bullies didn’t dare go for her directly, but indirectly, they made her life hard. Cruel notes were taped to her locker every day. A few of them dogged her social media to leave nasty comments and spread rumors.
After she landed a leading role in our rendition of The Tempest, the taunting got worse. And yet, my sister still danced, skated, and acted with utter poise and grace. She fought for what she wanted and got it, despite the bullies’ best efforts.
And I was her graceless little sister. Slightly overweight, shy, keeping my grades just high enough to pass.
More often than not, Stephanie acted like I didn’t exist when she was around her friends. When I tried to say something nice after she read a mean note, she ignored me.
I just got sick of it. What can I say? We’d been inseparable once. Now, she brushed me aside like a flea.
One prank. One prank, I told myself. Two of the mean girls had hatched a plan to dump melted chocolate on Stephanie’s textbooks. I played along in secret.
Since none of us got caught, I got cruelly bolder.
I devised a scheme to get her kicked out of a play, glued her skates together, changed her answers on a homework paper so she flunked.
Now I was the lioness, going for the kill with such grace, no one would ever chastise me.
How could I have been so blind?
.
.
.
.
My mom found her first. Called 911.
Dad and I arrived at the ER. Mom was sobbing on the floor.
Stephanie had killed herself.
.
.
.
.
They say sometimes there’s no warning when someone is suicidal. I didn’t believe it. I should have seen it. Seen the pain in her face, because she recognized the emptiness of being “number one.” Seen the fear, because she dreaded falling out of favor.
Nobody could carry that forever.
After spending weeks in bed, I started going to therapy, at my parents’ insistence. It didn’t help. The counselor wanted to help me accept that what I’d done to my sister had nothing to do with her taking her own life.
I couldn’t accept that. I didn’t want to be let off the hook. I was the weakling who had hurt her sister.
I spiraled downward emotionally until I couldn’t get through a school day without having a panic attack, usually hiding in the bathroom while my head felt like it might explode. Nightmares became a regular occurrence, unless I made myself stay up all night.
I read a relative’s social media post about Stephanie, citing her “gracefulness” in life. I screamed at the phone and threw it on the floor.
Where most had seen grace, there had lived pain.
I knew that now.
One evening, I walked home from school after a detention earned by snapping at a teacher. I walked by my grandparents’ church, like I had a thousand times. But this time, the sign caught my eye.
Under a red-and-white banner, a Bible verse was written.
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
A lightning bolt struck the soldered chains of grief around my heart. Tears that I had not been able to cry in weeks fell like healing rain. I collapsed on my knees in front of that church and prayed like I had never prayed before.
For forgiveness. For healing. For Stephanie.
The pain of losing my sister that way imbued a scar which has never gone away, but God gave it purpose.
I work as a counselor and advocate. When I speak at churches, I wear a shirt that says “Lioness”, in Stephanie’s honor.
Because my sister was a lioness, of strength and beauty. But while she fought for herself, no one fought alongside her.
I pray that to all who suffer in silence, there would be someone in their life who would extend to them the sufficient—extravagant—grace of God.
**FICTION. Inspired by a true story.
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