The morning toll.

Our mornings always began with a toll on those days.

Waking up before sunrise and collecting flowers from our jasmine tree – and sitting on my dad’s bike tank as he drove up and down the road trying to see how he might support the crowd control are some of my earliest memories.

I remember once we handed out cream buns to all those waiting in line – they seemed to be starved with desperation. They seemed to be starved with hope. And yet, there they were. Waiting on the sidelines – hoping to get answers to their prayers. It seemed the world would stop and listen.

Maybe it was a time of hope. We believed in this world and its conscience to answer to the voices of the suffering. Justice and righteousness were only a short while away. We hoped, we prayed. In retrospect, I suppose the opposite was much more jarring: to think that their lives were lost in vain. To think that our youngsters put their lives on the line and blew their futures to the wind only for the world to not blink an eye.