Seven by, Bria

   Every day I wake up wanting to run away from my life, just run into an ongoing forest where the trees are a rich dark green standing long and tall, and giving me all the air I need. In this forest there would be no way out. But then sometimes I don’t want to run, I want to claim my life because life is precious. Everyone has two stories the one they want you to know and the one they don’t. Only I know my real story, what I feel, what I think. But this time I want everyone to know my story something like all cards on the table.

   When you are young you read all these fairytales before you go to bed like Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast, teaching yourself that everything has a happy ending. I gave that fairytale dream up a long time ago because… What were the chances I would get cancer; and everyday my doctor comes in telling me something worse. Like as if my happy ending is too blurry to see.

   “Life is full of black holes that we can fall into at any time”, I fell into my black hole when I was seven years old. I woke up one morning with a pain near my spine that gave me chills and my breath seemed like it was sprinting far in the distance and I was trying really hard to catch it. I called out to my mom like mom was the only thing I knew how to say at the time.

Mom: “Seven what’s happening?”

Me: “I…can’t… (gasp) breathe mom… help.”

   It was only a few days later that I suffered from leukemia cancer. Even though I was only seven when I was diagnosed and I didn’t know the seriousness of what I was going through the look on my mom’s face told me everything that could happen in a ripple effect. You see it was only me and my mom, we only had each other. When I was born we had an understanding that we would protect each other through anything to the point where sometimes when she was driving me to school on a windy autumn morning and I was bopping my head to the song playing on the radio, I would stop to notice the swerving in the car, the continuous honking from another car at us, and my mom’s window slowly going down. My mom would swear at the former driver with her hand glued to the horn, a few seconds later my window would go down and I would call the former driver a whole bunch of names that fit them to me like stupid, fattymcfatfat, idiot, old hag and I’m sure many others. I wish I could say my mom and I still carry that strong bond but we don’t… When I was eleven years old I was getting better it was as if the cancer was gone and it was perfect because it was just around Christmas my favorite time of the year. What I love most is before I was sick, on Christmas Eve I would go ice-skating with my mom, the cold air would rush at my face and I would pull my hat over my ears while twirling in the ice as it scraped against my skates. After being out in the cold I would rush into my Manhattan apartment coming home to warmth not only from the heat  steaming from the radiator but the warmth of love that would be expressed so easily through the way my mom looked at me and kissed my nose. I would sit in front of the TV watching movies like The Polar Express, Home Alone, and Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas with a big red cup of hot chocolate with a whole bunch of marshmallows and stealing candy canes from the Christmas tree while my mom wasn’t looking. I was home for my eleventh year of Christmas and things were just how I remembered I was happy again…

    But that’s the thing about cancer it just doesn’t like to stay away. Shortly after it came back I was back in the hospital. It was as if I was diagnosed again because my mom wouldn’t stop crying. Only difference from the first time was she began to show up at the hospital less and less she went from being there all day, to twice a day, twice a day quickly became once a day, and before I knew it she was coming only twice a week. I didn’t understand why she did this I thought maybe my bald head made me ugly to her. I only wanted her to sit beside me. Before I would want her to talk to me and tell me stories I could always be able to remember but no not anymore all I wanted was for her to sit beside me. I’m fifteen now and I hate her for it but she doesn’t know that. Every night she calls me on FaceTime to wish me a goodnight sometimes when I’m lying in my hospital bed staring out the big window facing the parking lot trying to search for a group of stars to depend on for the night I just let the phone vibrate beside me until she stops calling. She always makes it when I have a big surgery or an MRI but we don’t talk much

Mom: “How are you feeling seven?”

Me: “Fine.”

Mom: “Are you hungry?”

Me: “No”

Mom: “You know you’re going to be better in no time, you’re so strong honey”

Me: “Um yeah.”

   My mom felt as though I needed more hands on therapy because I stopped showing emotion towards her or anything. But I just realized sooner or later I’m going to have to let go. I used to cry every single night because I was afraid of dying before it’s my time to go but the thing is I’m not afraid of dying. We are all put here to die… I’m afraid of dying and being forgotten, I’m afraid of not leaving my mark, I want to be remembered and I want to be somebody but the thing is I can’t be anybody anymore. Every day I lay here watching people visit family members and they stay for about two hours but they get to leave and live there life and the worst part is seeing patients leave smiling with balloons because they still have a promising life in the light.

    Therapy is bullshit because every morning she comes in my room and asks me the same question

Therapist: “How do you feel today seven?”

Me: “If you were dying how would you feel?”

Therapist: “you’re not dying seven and this is not about me”  

Me: “Please just leave”

   So it’s apparent that was not a good talk but the lady drives me crazy and I don’t know what makes my mother or any doctor think I want to spend time talking to someone about how I feel. I don’t want to feel anything. I am so sick and tired of feeling things mentally and physically but everyone is too stupid to understand that.

   There’s this boy who’s room is across the hall from me and he suffers from a kidney disease usually he’s really mean and always yelling but when he smokes weed he’s calm and actually really interesting to talk to. After that short but drastic session of therapy I needed to relax and just escape so I snuck out of my room with Brian to his 3:00 session of smoking in the basement…

Brian: “I know how you feel but yelling at everyone will only make things worse”

Me: “Says someone who yells at every single nurse throughout the day”

Brian: “Well yeah… but where not talking about me right now, Seven your too pretty to be mad at the world from something nobody can’t control”

Me: “I have a right to be mad at the people who weren’t here for me but want to give off there pity like I need that s***, and I’m not even pretty.”

Brian: “Shut up your beautiful you have these dark almond shaped eyes that give off a mystery, and you have these lips that looks like your always puckered and ready for a kiss, and you have such a perfect round shaped head, and when your happy you chuckle and smile wide but cover your mouth trying not to show your teeth”

   As he said these things he looked at me in a way that I was never looked at before by a boy because they haven’t been on my radar ever before.

Me: “Hold on there buddy your still two years older than me” I said laughing and passing back the joint while playing with the tube that went up my nostril

   After smoking with Brian I felt at ease, when you know you’re not promised tomorrow everything matters even the small things like sitting in a basement and smoking weed with someone you talk to on occasions while getting a fruit in the cafeteria at a hospital.

   I thought I could ignore the annoying therapist lady today by saying I didn’t feel good but no I was wrong she just wouldn’t go away.

Therapist: “Okay Seven where going to do something differently today.”

Me: “Finally.”

Therapist: “Well then it seems like it’s okay with you, I want you to tell me what life would be like if you didn’t have cancer”

Me: “I would be happy, I would be with my mom and we would be close, I would be in school with my name on the honor roll list every semester and I would be thinking about my dream collages, I would have friends, I would be me.”

Therapist: “So you’re saying with cancer you’re not allowed to be yourself?”

Me: “To be honest I don’t know who I am but I know who I want to be and frankly I don’t think I’ll ever be who I want to be because I’m here… You see that’s what people don’t understand everyone is able to live there life. I’m not sure what to expect each day I could wake up one day and not be here the next but you know what to expect every day.”

Therapist: “I understand but that’s not true Seven nobody knows what to expect in the days to come that’s what life is about life is about not expecting.”

Me: “NO I hate that you and other people don’t understand what it’s like everyone complains about stupid shit like there boyfriend didn’t text them back, or they hate waking up for work, or there not skinny enough, or they can’t get their life together when they don’t understand what it’s like for us kids suffering every day in this hospital. God just selected us to be sick and I don’t understand why. I HATE THAT YOU COME HERE ACTING LIKE YOU CARE ABOUT ME AND EVERYONE ELSE AND YOU WANT TO HELP BUT REALLY YOU GET TO WALK OUT OF HERE AND SMILE AND BE HAPPY”

Therapist: “YOU THINK JUST BECAUSE IM NOT FIGHTING FOR MY LIFE WE ALL DON’T HAVE THINGS WE ARE GOING THROUGH, My son died of cancer when he was only six years old and every day I ask why I couldn’t save my baby, why did it have to be him and why not me. YOUR NOT THE ONLY PERSON DEALING WITH SOMETHING YOU HAVE TO BE STRONG AND FIGHT AND PART OF THAT COMES WITH LETTING GO, you act like you have but you haven’t…”

   I couldn’t stop crying not because I was being yelled at but because it was true I put up this wall when really I just wanted to break it down and let everything go. The truth was I was sick of fighting. Later that day I took a walk, the perimeter of where I was walking wasn’t far or long but sometimes the longest walk you’ll ever take is the one you walk alone. I realized a lot through that session with the therapist and it made me want to continue to figure things out. Sometimes it’s just love you want or knowing everything will be okay even when it won’t. That night I answered my mom’s call on FaceTime…

    I used to think the reason I had such bad luck was because everything in my life consisted of an odd number from my name, to my birthday to the age I got cancer but things shouldn’t be based off a number. My name may be odd but that’s what makes me different and even though I may be leaving this earth I can’t say it’s not my time to go because it was somewhere in gods plans to believe it was my time but one thing I know is that my soul is here to stay forever.