Tissue warning.
Yesterday, in the hall of the Senate, these two women found themselves facing Senator Jeff Flake with only a moment to change his mind.
The woman on the left, Ana Maria Achila, spoke first.
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Yesterday, in the hall of the Senate, these two women found themselves facing Senator Jeff Flake with only a moment to change his mind.
The woman on the left, Ana Maria Achila, spoke first.
1/
Then, with the elevator doors closing, choked with emotion, desperate to be heard, desperate for all survivors of sexual assault to be heard, Maria Gallagher spoke.
“I was sexually assaulted.”
2/
“I was sexually assaulted.”
2/
Until that moment... with all the world watching... with cameras snapping... with the elevator doors about to close... she had told no one.
Maria Gallagher’s mother learned her daughter had been sexually assaulted the moment we did.
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Maria Gallagher’s mother learned her daughter had been sexually assaulted the moment we did.
3/
Maria Gallagher, in front of the eyes of the entire world, bared her most private trauma to stand up for victims everywhere.
She sacrificed her privacy, her safety, her opportunity to keep her trauma private.
She laid all of that down at the foot of an elevator.
4/
She sacrificed her privacy, her safety, her opportunity to keep her trauma private.
She laid all of that down at the foot of an elevator.
4/
Merely surviving sexual assault is a daily bravery.
Standing in front of a senator, and demanding they hear you as you lay bare your soul though...
That is downright heroic.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
5/
Standing in front of a senator, and demanding they hear you as you lay bare your soul though...
That is downright heroic.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
5/
Today, Maria Gallagher will invariably be flooded with messages of support.
...but there will also be hard conversations with people she loves about something she never told anyone - until she did... in the most public way possible and for the most courageous reason possible.
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...but there will also be hard conversations with people she loves about something she never told anyone - until she did... in the most public way possible and for the most courageous reason possible.
6/
To me, heroism is being brave when it would be easier not to be.
Heroism is being terrified but doing the terrifying thing anyway.
It’s putting the costs to yourself last because the cost to others is so very great.
7/
Heroism is being terrified but doing the terrifying thing anyway.
It’s putting the costs to yourself last because the cost to others is so very great.
7/
Heroism isn’t just courage. It’s risk and sacrifice. It’s selfless. It’s the very essence of humanity at its very best.
Ana Maria Achila.
Maria Gallagher.
These are two heroes.
8/8
Ana Maria Achila.
Maria Gallagher.
These are two heroes.
8/8
