Part I: The Roots The Wounds that Shaped Me

Chapter 2: The Illness That Almost Killed Me- The Year I Learned to Fight for My Life

Some of my earliest memories are not of toys, games, or childhood adventures. They are memories of survival. I was six years old when measles swept through our island. One after another, children became sick. Families worried, and mothers stayed awake through the night caring for their children. The illness spread quickly through our small community, and eventually it reached our home. Life was already difficult before sickness arrived. We lived in a small town without electricity and without running water. Every day required hard work. Finding clean water was a challenge. The land around our home was not a good source of drinking water. Whenever someone dug a well, the water often came out yellowish and carried an unpleasant smell. Most days, we fetched water from a neighboring area. It was not an easy life, but it was the only life we knew.

Then I became sick. At first, it seemed like any ordinary childhood illness, but as the days passed, my condition worsened. My body grew weak, my appetite disappeared, and I refused to eat or take medicine. I spent most of my days lying down, exhausted and without energy. The illness became so severe that I missed my enrollment for Grade 1. While other children were excited about starting school, I was fighting a battle I barely understood. Looking back now, I realize something heartbreaking: at six years old, I had already started giving up. I was too young to understand death, yet somehow I had stopped fighting for life. I refused the medicine that could help me, refused the food that could strengthen me, and simply wanted to be left alone.

What made it even harder was seeing the fear and frustration in the people who loved me.

My father watched all of this.

Day after day, he watched me refuse my food. He watched my mother try to make me eat. He watched me turn away from my medicine and lie there growing weaker.

I was so young. I did not understand what my refusal was doing to the people around me. I only knew that I was tired. I didn’t want to eat. I didn’t want medicine. I didn’t want anyone bothering me anymore.

One day, my father reached his limit.

He told me again that I needed to eat my food and take my medicine.

I refused.

He insisted.

I still refused.

Then his frustration turned into words I would never forget.

“If you don’t eat your food and take your medicine, I will bury you alive.”

I looked at him. I was frightened by what he said, but part of me thought he was only trying to scare me. Parents sometimes said frightening things when they were angry. Surely my father wasn’t serious.

Then he walked away. For a moment, I thought it was over. But he came back carrying a spade.

I stared at it. He walked toward the backyard without saying much. Then he raised the spade and drove it into the ground.

Again. And again. The soil turned over with every strike. I watched him dig.

At first, I was confused. I was still sick, weak, and exhausted. I could not understand why my father was suddenly digging in the backyard after threatening to bury me.

Then the hole began to take shape. I watched the soil pile up beside it.

The longer he dug, the more frightened I became. Eventually, my father pointed toward the hole and told me that if I continued refusing my food and medicine, that would be my final resting place.

I stared at it. Suddenly, his earlier words were no longer just words. There was an actual hole in our backyard. And my father was telling me it was meant for me.

My whole body filled with fear.

Until that moment, death had been something I did not truly understand. I knew people could die, but at six years old, death was still distant and abstract. I could refuse food. I could refuse medicine. I could close my eyes and hope everyone would leave me alone.

But I couldn’t ignore that hole. It was right there in front of me. I imagined myself inside it.

Covered with soil. For the first time, death felt real.

And suddenly, the little girl who had stopped caring whether she became stronger was terrified of what would happen if she didn’t.

I didn’t want that hole to become my grave. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live.

Something changed inside me that day.

Until then, everyone else had been fighting for me. My parents wanted me to eat. They wanted me to take my medicine. They wanted me to recover.

That day, I took my medicine. I ate my food. Little by little, my strength returned. My fever broke, my appetite came back, and my body began to heal. I survived. But survival came with a cost. By the time I recovered, the school year had already begun, and I missed my chance to enroll in Grade 1. While other children sat inside classrooms learning their letters and numbers, I remained at home. It would have been easy to believe I had fallen behind, but even then, something inside me refused to stay still. We were poor. I did not have notebooks, plenty of school supplies, or even a pencil. What I had was determination. I found a stick. I found banana leaves. And on those banana leaves, I practiced writing—letter after letter, word after word, day after day. Among those words was the name I had once struggled to love: Melyn. The same name I wrote over and over became proof that I was still here, proof that I had survived, proof that my story was not over.

Today, when I look back on that little girl, I see more than a child recovering from measles. I see my first lesson in resilience. Life would challenge me many times after that. There would be disappointments, heartbreaks, rejection, loneliness, and moments when giving up seemed easier than moving forward. Yet every time life knocked me down, I carried something with me from that small island—the memory of a six‑year‑old girl who was too weak to stand, yet somehow found the strength to fight for one more day.

Many years later, I would face another battle. This time, the enemy would not be measles. It would be my own health. I would be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and subclinical hyperthyroidism. Once again, I would find myself sitting in doctors’ offices, listening to diagnoses, reading test results, and wondering what the future might hold. There were moments of fear, moments of frustration, and moments when the road ahead seemed overwhelming. But whenever I feel discouraged, I think about that little girl on the island—the girl who missed her first year of school, who learned her letters on banana leaves, who stared at a freshly dug hole and decided she wanted to live. She reminds me that I have been fighting my whole life.

My journey today is not about denying illness or pretending that healing is easy. It is about refusing to surrender. It is about believing that there is always something I can do to improve my health, strengthen my body, and care for the life God has given me. I continue to learn. I continue to hope. I continue to fight. Because I have learned that healing is not a destination—it is a daily decision. And perhaps that is the greatest lesson illness ever taught me. Long before I understood courage, I was already practicing it. Long before I understood perseverance, I was already living it. And long before I learned how to tell my story, I was already surviving it.

Closing Reflection

Sometimes the battles that shape us happen long before anyone notices. There are no medals for surviving childhood illness, no applause for choosing life when every part of you want to surrender. Yet those quiet victories, unseen by the world, become the foundation of who we are.

At six years old, I thought I was losing everything. What I did not know was that life was teaching me one of its most important lessons: the strength to keep going often appears long before we realize we possess it. The little girl who survived measles never disappeared. She still lives within me. She is the reason I keep showing up, the reason I keep hoping, the reason I keep fighting.

Her courage whispers to me in moments of weakness, reminding me that survival is not just about overcoming illness—it is about choosing life again and again, even when surrender feels easier. And because she fought, I continue to fight. Because she believed, I continued to hope. Because she endured, I continue to rise.

Scripture

“I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me.”

Philippians 4:13 — New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE)

Continue Reading

I survived the illness that nearly took my life, but growing up would teach me that not every wound comes from sickness. Some wounds hurt the body, while others leave scars no one can see.

Next: Chapter 3 — My First Trauma
When Silence Took My Voice

→ Read Chapter 3