Kamala Harris’ ‘Pure Protecting Instincts’ Recalled by Good friend (Unique)

Kamala Harris‘ highschool finest buddy is reflecting on how the now-vice president “modified the entire trajectory of my future” and gave her a spot to remain when she was in want.

Wanda Kagan, who attended Westmount Excessive Faculty in Montreal with Harris earlier than graduating in 1981, befriended the present presidential candidate after they had been younger youngsters. The pair would “spend a variety of time collectively” in class, take part in numerous actions and even went as a gaggle to promenade with different buddies — which she says was Harris’ thought after not all of their buddies had dates lined up.

At some point, as Kagan recollects to PEOPLE, Harris seen “I wasn’t being myself.”

“She lastly, at some point out and out, requested me what was fallacious. I had lastly determined to open up to her and inform her that I used to be being bodily and sexually abused at house by my stepfather,” Kagan tells PEOPLE. “And it was troublesome… She was like, ‘Nicely, you are simply going to have to come back and stick with us.'”

“First, she needed to understand how lengthy I had been going by that. I used to be like, ‘Are you positive your mother’s going to be OK with this?’ And she or he stated, ‘I am positive.’ She then known as her mother [Shyamala Gopalan], after which her mother stated, ‘Sure, she will come house. She will come and stick with us,’ ” Kagan says. “And I went house with them— really, that day; got here straight from college.”

As Kagan shares, Harris opened her doorways for her in the course of the pair’s senior yr of highschool in 1981 when she and her mother “welcomed” her into their household. She stayed with Harris for a couple of months throughout their last yr in class collectively, which Kagan says supplied her a “sense of safety” throughout a troublesome time.

By that time, Kagan had confronted abuse for “a couple of years” and it was getting “worse.” A part of the abuse, she says, additionally meant she “did not get to eat,” one thing that Harris additionally appeared to select up on when Kagan would present as much as lunch empty handed.

“[Kamala] all the time had these nice lunches and I might say, ‘Oh, your lunches are so good.’ And so she simply, I assume, picked up on it,” Kagan says. “She began going, ‘Oh, I made you this in the present day. I purchased this sandwich in the present day.’ And so she began bringing lunch for me.”

That kindness is instinctual to Harris, Kagan says. She calls the Democratic presidential candidate an “empathetic individual” with “pure protecting instincts.”

Harris, too, shared their story on X (previously Twitter) again in October, when she revealed that serving to her buddy was “one of many causes I needed to develop into a prosecutor.” The vice chairman advised Kagan the identical when the pair reconnected years later.

They’d misplaced contact a while after Harris left for Howard College within the ’80s, Kagan — who by 2005, had a household and a profitable profession within the healthcare trade — says a mutual buddy known as her that yr to tell her Harris was featured on The Oprah Winfrey Present, whereas serving as District Lawyer for San Francisco.

Kagan was “completely shocked,” situated contact info for Harris’ workplace and left a message, earlier than her daughter got here to her to tell her that her “buddy from Oprah” was calling.

“I bear in mind choosing up the telephone and it is like, ‘Oh my God, I can not consider you known as me again. You could have 1,000,000 folks calling you,’ ” Kagan recounts to PEOPLE of their first dialog after 20 years. “After which she stated to me, ‘Nicely, you are not simply anybody.’ “

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“I nonetheless generally cannot consider it,” Kagan remarks of their telephone name, noting that their catch-up felt as if “time stood nonetheless.”

“She proceeded to inform me how a lot I affected her life and what she had develop into,” says Kagan. I used to be like, ‘Whoa, I’m looking for you to thanks for intervening on the most pivotal level in my life, and also you’re thanking me for supplying you with readability to the course that you just needed to enter on your future and preventing for girls and youngsters who’ve been abused!’ ”

The 2 reminisced about all that had occurred within the years since, Harris telling Kagan she pursued the authorized subject “‘due to what I went by with you; with serving to you and advocating for you.’ ”

“‘It modified one thing inside me,’ ” Kagan recollects Harris telling her.

Reconnecting along with her highschool buddy reminded Kagan that Harris “really is similar individual.”

“[Kamala’s] all the time been this fighter.. who fights for what she believes in,” Kagan says. “And when she stated it to me on the time. It wasn’t similar to I am picturing her as a lawyer operating, establishing these totally different models and protecting for youths and girls and youngsters of sexual abuse. Nevertheless it actually introduced me again to that point.”

“She did not simply say, ‘Oh, come stick with me and let’s all go to the flicks and let’s do that, let’s do this’… She actually advocated for me,” Kagan notes. “And she or he has such a strong voice.”

In the event you suspect youngster abuse, name the Childhelp Nationwide Baby Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Baby or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is on the market 24/7 in additional than 170 languages.