If you want the definition of courage…

I cover news for a living, I’m a journalist. In previous posts, I mentioned how easy it is for you to become a little jaded and unattached to the violence and tragedy that happens every day in this world.

Last night, I stepped back a little while watching Jeff Mackel’s interview with Johanna Orozco. She is the Cleveland teenager who was shot in the face by her former boyfriend, Juan Ruiz. She endured hours of surgeries and has many still ahead as doctors work to try to undo what Ruiz did to her with just a blast from a sawed off shotgun. With each of those procedures her medical bills inch closer to $375,000.

Even with the almost deadly attack, her rape by Ruiz and everything she’s gone through so far, the teenager still has her sense of humor. Her personality is bubbly. She laughs, she jokes and if it weren’t for the scars of the domestic violence, you wouldn’t know anything happened to this young woman.

One word you can’t help thinking when you see Johanna is courage. What courage it took to stand up to the person who tried to kill you. What courage it took to take off the veil that covered her scars. What courage it takes to go through the painful surgeries she’s already been through and the upcoming ones. During Ruiz’s sentencing Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Timothy McGinty used that word to describe Johanna. He then sentenced Ruiz to 27 years in prison.

Johanna is writing a book about her experiences. While penning it, she’ll have to relive all of the trauma she’s gone through in her life. Hopefully, it will somehow work to heal some of her wounds.

She’s definitely an inspiration. She loves life, something that someone else almost took away from her.